Anticonvulsant teratogenesis 4: Inter-rater agreement in assessing minor physical features related to anticonvulsant therapy

Abstract

Background: We report on inter-rater agreement in the assessment of newborn infants with respect to a range of minor physical features in a cohort study of the fetal effects of maternal anticonvulsant use during pregnancy. Methods: Infants from three groups (exposed to anticonvulsants, seizure history but no medication exposure, and unexposed controls) were examined by both a pediatrician/teratologist, who was blinded with respect to the mother's exposure status, and an unblinded research assistant. Agreement on assessments for selected anomalies associated with anticonvulsant therapy was measured by kappa-statistics, as well as by more sensitive log-linear modeling techniques, which allow e..