Reliability Study of the Items of the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) Using Kappa Analysis.

Purpose: We evaluated the interrater and intrarater reliabilities of the Korean version of the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (K-AIMS).

Methods: For the interrater reliability test, six raters participated in the K-AIMS evaluation using video clips of 70 infants (aged between 0 and 18 months). One rater participated in an intrarater reliability test. Among 70 infants, 46 were born preterm and 24 were born full term. A total of 58 AIMS items were evaluated for supine, prone, sitting, and standing positions. A reliability analysis was conducted using ICC and Fleiss' kappa.

Results: The highest Fleiss' kappa was found for the 4-7 months group for sitting (K = 0.701-1.000) and standing (K = 0.721-1.000), while the lowest K was the 3 months or under group for standing (K = 0.153-1.000). We found higher Fleiss' kappa statistics when all infants were evaluated without grouping for the three positions (K = 0.727-1.000), except standing (K = 0.192-1.000), for the interrater analysis.

Conclusion: Our results demonstrate the good reliability for the Korean version of the AIMS for Korean infants (preterm and full term).