Reliability of the reflux finding score for infants in flexible versus rigid laryngoscopy.
OBJECTIVE
The Reflux Finding Score for Infants (RFS-I) was developed to assess signs of laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) in infants. With flexible laryngoscopy, moderate inter- and highly variable intraobserver reliability was found. We hypothesized that the use of rigid laryngoscopy would increase reliability and therefore evaluated the reliability of the RFS-I for flexible versus rigid laryngoscopy in infants.


METHODS
We established a set of videos of consecutively performed flexible and rigid laryngoscopies in infants. The RFS-I was scored twice by 4 otorhinolaryngologists, 2 otorhinolaryngology fellows, and 2 inexperienced observers. Cohen's and Fleiss' kappas (k) were calculated for categorical data and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated for ordinal data.


RESULTS
The study set consisted of laryngoscopic videos of 30 infants (median age 7.5 (0-19.8) months). Overall interobserver reliability of the RFS-I was moderate for both flexible (ICC = 0.60, 95% CI 0.44-0.76) and rigid (ICC = 0.42, 95% CI 0.26-0.62) laryngoscopy. There were no significant differences in reliability of overall RFS-I scores and individual RFS-I items for flexible versus rigid laryngoscopy. Intraobserver reliability of the total RFS-I score ranged from fair to excellent for both flexible (ICC = 0.33-0.93) and rigid (ICC = 0.39-0.86) laryngoscopies. Comparing RFS-I results for flexible versus rigid laryngoscopy per observer, reliability ranged from no to substantial (k = -0.16-0.63, mean k = 0.22), with an observed agreement of 0.08-0.35.


CONCLUSIONS
Reliability of the RFS-I was moderate and did not differ between flexible and rigid laryngoscopies. The RFS-I is not suitable to detect signs or to guide treatment of LPR in infants, neither with flexible nor with rigid laryngoscopy.
Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children's Hospital, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: m.m.j.singendonk@amc.uva.nl.
Maartje M J
MM
Singendonk
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Bas
B
Pullens
Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children's Hospital, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Jan A A
JA
van Heteren
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Henriëtte H W
HH
de Gier
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Hans L J
HL
Hoeve
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Astrid M
AM
König
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Marc P
MP
van der Schroeff
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Carlijn E L
CE
Hoekstra
Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Laura L
LL
Veder
Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children's Hospital, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Rachel J
RJ
van der Pol
Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children's Hospital, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Marc A
MA
Benninga
Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Emma Children's Hospital, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Michiel P
MP
van Wijk
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D057045:Laryngopharyngeal Reflux / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D020704:Laryngoscopes; D007828:Laryngoscopy / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014741:Video Recording
Diagnostic; LPR; Laryngopharyngeal reflux