title: The Mental Disability Military Assessment Tool: A Reliable Tool for Determining Disability in Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  An assessment tool was developed to assess disability in veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to a military mission. The objective of this study was to determine the reliability, intra-rater and inter-rater variation of the Mental Disability Military (MDM) assessment tool.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-four assessment interviews of veterans with an insurance physician were videotaped. Each videotaped interview was assessed by a group of five independent raters on limitations of the veterans using the MDM assessment tool. After 2 months the raters repeated this procedure. Next the intra-rater and inter-rater variation was assessed with an adjusted version of AG09 computing weighted percentage agreement.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results of this study showed that both the intra-rater variation and inter-rater variation on the ten subcategories of the MDM assessment tool were small, with an agreement of 84-100% within raters and 93-100% between raters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The MDM assessment tool proves to be a reliable instrument to measure PTSD limitations in functioning in Dutch military veterans who apply for disability compensation. Further research is needed to assess the validity of this instrument.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Research in Care (FA12), University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 196, 9700 AD, Groningen, The Netherlands, a.s.fokkens@umcg.nl.
authors.forename: Andrea S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Fokkens
authors.forename: Johan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Groothoff
authors.forename: Jac J L
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: van der Klink
authors.forename: Roel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Popping
authors.forename: Roy E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.forename: Lex
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: van de Ven
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brouwer
authors.forename: Jolanda
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tuinstra
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008887:Military Medicine / Q000379:methods; D009426:Netherlands; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014728:Veterans / Q000523:psychology*