Reliability of the assessment of appropriateness of diagnostic test request behavior.

ABSTRACT

We describe the reliability of the assessment of the appropriateness of requested diagnostic tests. We used a retrospective random selection of 253 request forms with in total 1217 requested tests. Three experts made an independent assessment of each requested test. Interrater kappa values ranged from 0.33 to 0.44. The kappa values of intrarater agreement ranged from 0.65 to 0.68. The reliability coefficient for all three reviewers was 0.66. This reliability is not sufficient to make case-by-case decisions, for example to give individual feedback on the appropriateness of requested tests. Sixteen reviewers are necessary to obtain a reference with a reliability of 0.95.