Interrater Reliability of the Clock Drawing Task in the Occupational Therapy Adult Perceptual Screening Test

Abstract

The clock drawing item in the Occupational Therapy Adult Perceptual Screening Test (OT-APST) screens for unilateral neglect and impairments in constructional skills. The purpose of this study was to re-evaluate the interrater reliability of the clock drawing item in the OT-APST following the addition of example clock drawings to the manual. This study also compared the interrater reliability for occupational therapy clinicians with that for final year occupational therapy students and examined clocks with poor interrater reliability for the individual scoring criteria.

Sixteen occupational therapy students and 15 practising occupational therapists scored 50 clocks drawn by people with stroke, using the OT-APST clock drawing criteria. Interrater reliability was determined for each rater in comparison to the gold standard, using intraclass correlation (ICC) and kappa statistics. Student and clinician interrater reliability were compared using t-tests. The scoring of clocks with poor agreement was examined further in order to identify disparities.

The student and clinician groups demonstrated excellent reliability for ICC (0.83 and 0.84 respectively) and moderate reliability for kappa statistics (0.58 and 0.59). The differences between the groups were not significant (p > 0.05). Scoring disparities were seen in the formation of the circle or in the placement of the numbers. The results support reliable scoring for the clock drawing item in the OT-APST.