Browsing by Author "Özkul Y."

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    Diagnosis of allergic rhinitis: Inter-rater reliability and predictive value of nasal endoscopic examination: A prospective observational study
    (2013) Eren E.; Aktaş A.; Arslanoǧlu S.; Kopar A.; Ciǧer E.; Özkul Y.; Önal K.; Katilmiş H.
    Objective: To determine the inter-rater reliability of nasal endoscopic findings and the feasibility of diagnosis of allergic rhinitis based solely on symptoms and nasal endoscopy. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: University Teaching hospital. Participants: One hundred and eight patients were referred from the allergy clinic included in the study. Main outcome measures: Predictive value of symptoms and nasal endoscopic examination to diagnose allergic rhinitis and inter-rater reliability of the examination were evaluated. Results: Logistic regression analysis of patient symptoms and nasal examination findings revealed no significant predictive power for any of the symptoms or examination findings. The Fleiss κ coefficient of the three raters was calculated. Inter-rater variability among the three physicians demonstrated that mucosal oedema (κ = 0,48, P < 0.001), polypoid degeneration of the inferior turbinate tail (κ = 0.48, P = 0.01), nasal polyps (κ = 0.96, P < 0.001) and nasal septal deviation (κ = 0.65, P = 0.01) showed significant inter-rater agreement. A low κ coefficient (0.29) was found, and the inter-rater variability among physicians in interpreting the characteristics of nasal secretions was significant (P = 0.04). The inter-rater variability among the three physicians suggested that turbinate hypertrophy (κ = 0.31) and turbinate colour (κ = 0.38) showed no significant inter-rater agreement. Conclusions: Patient symptoms and nasal endoscopy findings do not provide reliable diagnosis of allergic rhinitis. Turbinate colour and hypertrophy are believed to be related to allergic rhinitis; however, these were subject to marked inter-rater variability in this study. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 38 6 December 2013 10.1111/coa.12171 Original Article Original Articles © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.