Nurses’ Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation: reliability update

BACKGROUND: The Nurses' Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation is a 30-item scale designed in 1965 for behavioural and observational rating of psychiatric inpatients. AIM: This paper reports a re-evaluation of the Nurses' Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation carried out to confirm that it remains reliable in a modern United Kingdom (UK) setting. METHOD: The scale is a joint-rated one and we tested the degree of agreement between two individual raters and not, as in previous studies, between two pairs of raters. A total of 100 patients were each rated by two nurses, and a least-squares simple regression model was used to describe the average level of agreement between the pairs of ratings. RESULTS: The correlation in total scale scores was 0.76 (F = 136, P < 0.0001). The correlations for Negative and Positive Factors were 0.68 (P < 0.001) and 0.75 (P < 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that the Nurses' Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation retains satisfactory inter-rater reliability with current clinical populations, and we suggest that it remains a useful tool for everyday clinical practice and a basis for meaningful communication between staff about patient status.