Interrater reliability of the Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function for children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: We examined the interrater reliability of the Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function. METHOD: Three occupational therapists independently scored 34 videotaped assessments of children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy aged 6 yr, 1 mo, to 14 yr, 5 mo. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) at a 95% confidence interval were calculated for total scores, category scores, and item scores. RESULTS: The correlation between raters' total scores was high (ICC = .961). The highest correlation for test components between raters was found for fluency (ICC = .902), followed by range of movement (ICC = .866), and the lowest correlation was found for quality of movement (ICC = .683). The ICCs for individual test item scores varied and ranged from .368 to .899. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated high interrater reliability for total scores, with scoring of some individual components and items requiring further consideration from both a clinical and a research perspective.