Inter rater reliability of Pressure Ulcer Scale for Healing (PUSH) in patients with chronic leg ulcers

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the inter rater reliability of the Pressure Ulcer Scale for Healing (PUSH), in its version adapted to the Portuguese language, in patients with chronic leg ulcers. Kappa index was used for the analysis. After accomplishing ethical issues, 41 patients with ulcers were examined. A total of 49% of the ulcers were located in the right leg and 36% of them were venous ulcers. The Kappa indices (0.97 to 1.00) obtained in the comparison between the observations of the clinical nurses and the stomal therapists for all sub-scales and for total score, confirmed the tool inter rater reliability, with statistical significance (p<0.001). The PUSH instrument, in its Portuguese adapted version, showed to be reliable to the use in patients with chronic leg ulcers. Further studies should be conducted to evaluate its prospective performance.