Observer variation in clinical examination of the nasal airway

Abstract

There has been no standardization of clinical assessment of the nasal airway between different clinical trials. In order to evaluate the reproducibility of tests in use in current clinical practice, pretrial interobserver assessment of the nasal airway tests was made and an intra- and interobserver assessment was made in 25 patients. Differing degrees of correlation were demonstrated using the Kappa statistic. Suggestions are made to enable improved standardization of clinical examination of the nasal airways for clinical trials.