Question

A team of researchers has developed a structured interview to diagnose a new type of personality disorder. A series of trials to check the reliability of the structured interview yields a kappa of .75. How should the researchers view this result?

Answer 1

Answer:

The kappa is at an acceptable level for well-established diagnostic instruments, so the interview is ready to be used in clinical settings.

Explanation:

Kappa is a statistical method for assessing the level of agreement or reproducibility between two data sets. It is considered a conservative given, so whenever possible it should be used. It is widely used to evaluate the reproducibility of questionnaires in the validation phase. According to the Kappa result, it is possible to assess the acceptable level for diagnostic instruments and thus conclude if an interview is ready for use in clinical settings. When the Kappa result is above 0.21, we can conclude that the search had positive results. Thus, we can conclude that if the Kappa value was 0.75, the research presented in the question presented an acceptable level for well-established diagnostic instruments, so the interview is ready to be used in clinical contexts.