Inter-examiner reliability of the Communication Evaluation in Rehabilitation Tool for evaluating a physical therapist’s communication skill in increasing patient autonomy

Abstract

In 2018, the Communication Evaluation in Rehabilitation Tool (CERT) was developed to evaluate a physical therapist's communication skill in increasing patient autonomy. The developers of CERT reported an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.76 for the total CERT score. The purpose of this study was to investigate the inter-examiner reliability of non-CERT developers. Two novice examiners independently evaluated voice data in the initial physical therapy sessions of 16 patients with low back pain who were treated by 4 physical therapists (4 patients each). The examiners viewed the CERT training materials (audio of 3 cases and CERT reference values) equivalent to 4 hours, and then scored according to the CERT coding manual. For the inter-examiner reliability, ICC was calculated for each of the 18 items of CERT and the total score, and scores of 0.4 or less were interpreted as weak. The ICC of the total score was 0.85, but 6 items had scores of 0.4 or less. This study found that the total score of CERT has inter-examiner reliability even for non-CERT developers. However, it will be necessary to improve the coding manual and investigate whether inter-examiner reliability is guaranteed for each item of the CERT.