ABSTRACT
A prospective, descriptive study was conducted in an acute care hospital in Singapore to determine the inter-rater reliability of the modified Morse Fall Scale by evaluating the degrees of agreement on the ratings of the individual items and overall score between the 'gold standard' assessor and the facility assessors. One hundred and forty-two subjects were recruited during the 1.5 month data collection period. The simple and weighted κ-values were all > 0.8 except for the item 'effects of medications' (κ and κw = 0.63), and the correlation coefficient (rs = 0.89) was significantly high at a significance level of < 0.001. The modified Morse Fall Scale was shown to be a reliable fall risk assessment tool having a relative high inter-rater reliability level for the overall score and individual items. This study provides evidence-based psychometric support for the clinical application of this tool.
Subject(s)
Accidental Falls , Hospitals, Urban/organization & administration , Aged , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Reproducibility of Results , SingaporeABSTRACT
Chytridiomycosis, caused by the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is responsible for many amphibian declines and has been identified in wild amphibian populations on all continents where they exist, except for Asia. In order to assess whether B. dendrobatidis is present on the native amphibians of Hong Kong, we sampled wild populations of Amolops hongkongensis, Paa exilispinosa, P. spinosa and Rana chloronota during 2005-2006. Amphibians infected with B. dendrobatidis have been found in the international trade, so we also examined the extent and nature of the amphibian trade in Hong Kong during 2005-2006, and assessed whether B. dendrobatidis was present in imported amphibians. All 274 individuals of 4 native amphibian species sampled tested negative for B. dendrobatidis, giving an upper 95% confidence limit for prevalence of 1.3%. Approximately 4.3 million amphibians of 45 species from 11 countries were imported into Hong Kong via air over 12 mo; we did not detect B. dendrobatidis on any of 137 imported amphibians sampled. As B. dendrobatidis generally occurs at greater than 5% prevalence in infected populations during favorable environmental conditions, native amphibians in Hong Kong appear free of B. dendrobatidis, and may be at severe risk of impact if it is introduced. Until it is established that the pathogen is present in Hong Kong, management strategies should focus on preventing it from being imported and decreasing the risk of it escaping into the wild amphibian populations if imported. Further research is needed to determine the status of B. dendrobatidis in Hong Kong with greater certainty.
