Linking Clinical Information to ICF: Inter- and Intra-Rater Agreement When Using a Coding Platform
摘要
Mapping information to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) continues to pose a challenge for different health professionals, especially in clinical practice contexts, but tools based on information technologies might improve the efficiency of this process. In this study, we aimed to assess the agreement and efficiency of coding Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound (SMART) therapeutic goals to ICF using a web ICF-Coding Platform (ICF-CP). Inter- and intra-rater agreement values were analyzed, both using and not using ICF-CP (stage 1), without using ICF-CP (stage 2), and only using ICF-CP (stage 3), considering two phases (i.e., ICF-CP without additional information (phase 1) and ICF-CP with additional information (phase 2)) with the participation of two raters. The coding duration was used as the indicator for efficiency. The biggest increase in agreement occurred in the comparison between using or not using ICF-CP: stage 1, phase 1 (kappa = 0.46; 95% CI, [0.26–0.66]) to stage 1, phase 2 (kappa = 0.69; 95% CI, [0.53–0.85]). For the same set of records used in stage 1, the coding duration was significantly shorter using ICF-CP (means for both raters, 205 ± 35 min vs. 30 ± 5 min). Similarly, comparing stage 2 with stage 3, we observed that the coding duration was much shorter for both raters when using ICF-CP. The results show that ICF-CP could provide important support to the coding of clinical records, namely rehabilitation goals.