TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2004//
TI  - Inter-rater agreement in defining chemical incidents at the National Poisons Information Service, London
JO  - Journal of epidemiology and community health
A1  - Abubakar, I.
A1  - Leonardi, G. S.
A1  - Edwards, Nancy
A1  - Herriott, N.
SP  - 718
EP  - 722
VL  - 58
IS  - 8
N2  - BACKGROUND: National surveillance for chemical incidents is being developed in the UK. It is important to improve the quality of information collected, standardise techniques, and train personnel. OBJECTIVE: To define the extent to which eight National Poison Information Service specialists in poison information agree on the classification of calls received as "chemical incidents" based on the national definition. DESIGN: Blinded, inter-rater reliability measured using the kappa statistic for multiple raters. SETTING: National Poison Information Service and Chemical Incident Response Service, Guy's and St Thomas's NHS Trust, London. PARTICIPANTS: Eight specialists in poison information who are trained and experienced in handling poisons information calls and have been involved in extracting information for surveillance. RESULTS: The overall level of agreement observed was at least 69% greater than expected by chance (kappa statistic). Fire and incidents where chemicals were released within a property had a very good level of agreement with kappa statistic of 83% and 80% respectively. The lowest level of agreement was observed when no one or only one person was exposed to a chemical (33%) and when the chemical was released into the air (48%). CONCLUSION: High levels of agreement were observed. There is a need for more training and improvement in consistency of the data collected by all organisations.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0143-005X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech.2002.006650
ID  - ref1
ER  -