The inter-rater reliability test of the modified Morse Fall Scale among patients >= 55 years old in an acute care hospital in Singapore

Abstract

A prospective, descriptive study was conducted in an acute care hospital in Singapore to determine the inter-rater reliability of the modified Morse Fall Scale by evaluating the degrees of agreement on the ratings of the individual items and overall score between the 'gold standard' assessor and the facility assessors. One hundred and forty-two subjects were recruited during the 1.5 month data collection period. The simple and weighted κ-values were all >0.8 except for the item 'effects of medications' (κ and κw=0.63), and the correlation coefficient (rs=0.89) was significantly high at a significance level of <0.001. The modified Morse Fall Scale was shown to be a reliable fall risk assessment tool having a relative high inter-rater reliability level for the overall score and individual items. This study provides evidence-based psychometric support for the clinical application of this tool. © 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.