title: Reliability of global impressions for assessing methylphenidate effects in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
abstract: Agreement between raters using global impressions to assess methylphenidate response was analyzed for children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) undergoing double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover methylphenidate trials. Caregivers were more likely to disagree than agree when asked to rate the children as "better, same, or worse" during each day of the trial. Over-all agreement was 42.9%, only 9.6% above what would be expected based on chance alone. Further, none of the interrater reliability coefficients (Cohen's kappa) for the individual children were statistically significant.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey 17033.
authors.forename: S D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Mayes
authors.forename: E O
authors.initials: EO
authors.lastname: Bixler
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000187:drug effects; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008774:Methylphenidate / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D008774:Methylphenidate