title: Sample size requirements for the comparison of two or more coefficients of inter-observer agreement.
abstract: I provide sample size formulae and tables for the design of studies that compare two or more coefficients of inter-observer agreement or concordance. Such studies may arise, for example, when interest centres on assessment of how measures of inter-observer agreement vary across different patient subgroups or treatment centres. I consider cases of both a continuous and a dichotomous outcome measure. Three examples illustrate the results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. donner@biostats.uwo.ca
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Donner
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity