title: 'Annals of Emergency Medicine Journal Club: the measurement of reliability.
abstract: Editor's capsule summary for Cruz et al: (1) WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ON THIS TOPIC: Valid clinical research requires high-quality data collection. Physicians are commonly considered the standard by which valid prospective data are obtained. WHAT QUESTION THIS STUDY ADDRESSED: This study determined whether non-medically trained research assistants could reliably collect subjective historical data from emergency department patients with chest pain. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE: This prospective comparative study included 33 research assistants, 39 physicians, and 143 patients. Research assistants demonstrated fair to excellent reliability (as defined by crude agreement and kappa) when obtaining cardiac histories and cardiac risk factors. HOW THIS MIGHT CHANGE CLINICAL PRACTICE: The results of this study will not change clinical practice. They do, however, provide evidence to support the use of trained research assistants for the collection of certain types of clinical data.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Frank C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Schriger