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

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

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.

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.

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