Print

Print


Geert Aufdemkampe writes:

>We are at the moment trying to fit more than two raters
>in a Bland and Altman plot. Conventional software such as
>Medcalc accepts only two raters. Do you have a solution
>for this problem?

I'm a bit confused here. Usually, the Bland and Altman charts are used to
compare two different rating instruments rather than two different raters.
For example, you might compare the temperature measured with a mercury glass
thermometer to the temperature measured with one of those strips that you
hold to your forehead.

Raters are different than ratings, because you usually want to generalize
beyond the two or three raters themselves. The raters in your study probably
cannot come to my hospital to evaluate my patients. I would have to rely on
raters that live and work in Kansas City.

It might be better to come up with measures of how consistent two or more
raters are, such as the intraclass correlation coefficient. There is a nice
book by Shoukri and Edge that gives details about how to measure agreement
among multiple raters, but the mathematics are rather difficult.

If you wanted to compare the three raters like you would compare three
ratings, then a simple approach would be to do a Bland Altman chart for A
versus B, then for A versus C and the finally for B versus C. Before you do
this, though, think about whether this chart has any practical utility.

Shoukri, M. M. and V. L. Edge (1996). Statistical Methods for Health
Sciences. Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press.

Steve Simon, [log in to unmask], Standard Disclaimer.
STATS: STeve's Attempt to Teach Statistics. http://www.cmh.edu/stats



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%