The Westmead Home Safety Assessment provides an extensive list of potential hazards and was developed as a tool for occupational therapists to identify environmental hazards in the homes of persons who are at risk of falling. It was refined by procedures to establish content validity and by compiling an accompanying manual. Thus, the tool and its' manual offer a valid and systematic way of identifying potential environmental fall hazards in and about the home. Using the tool in home visit situations can assist the therapist to develop skills in observing fall hazards. This study examined the reliability of the refined tool when used in the context of a home visit. An inter-rater reliability study demonstrated the inter-rater reliability (all items kappa > 0.40) was improved over the earlier version (one third items kappa < 0.40). This supported the importance of training and clearly defining the domain of interest.
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