Inter-rater reliability assessment of new diabetic foot ulcers (The Diabetic Foot Ulcer Assessment Scale) based on photograph

Abstract

Objective

The aim of this study is to evaluate the reliability of the Diabetic Foot Ulcer Assessment Scale (DFUAS) among different nurses.

Method

This research design was a comparison measurement between wound care nurses. The forward translation of DFUAS was translated into Indonesian and used to evaluated DFU status based on a photograph DFUAS that has been translated into Bahasa was used to evaluate the DFU status based on photographs. Cohen's kappa was used to evaluate inter reliability between nurses.

Results

The Cohen's kappa revealed that the inter-rater reliability for depth (0.76–0.80), size (0.80–0.86), size score (0.87–0.89), inflammation/infection (0.69–0.75), proportion of granulation tissue (0.73–0.79), type of necrotic tissue (0.65–0.73), proportion of necrotic tissue (0.87–0.89), proportion of slough (0.58–0.65), maceration (0.79–0.85), type of wound edge (0.91–0.93), and tunneling (0.90–0.91).

Conclusion

This study confirmed DFUAS has an adequate reliability between different wound nurses (inter-rater reliability).