1. Peripheral arterial occlusive disease in general practice: the reproducibility of the ankle-arm systolic pressure ratio
- Author
-
André Knottnerus, Arnold D. M. Kester, Victor Kaiser, Hubert J.A. Schouten, and Jelle Stoffers
- Subjects
Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Arterial Occlusive Diseases ,Blood Pressure ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Aged ,Observer Variation ,Reproducibility ,Vascular disease ,business.industry ,Ultrasound ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Prediction interval ,Reproducibility of Results ,Blood Pressure Determination ,Middle Aged ,Random effects model ,medicine.disease ,Surgery ,Blood pressure ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Physician Assistants ,Cardiology ,Arm ,Female ,Ankle ,business ,Family Practice - Abstract
One of the non-invasive techniques used in the diagnosis of patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease is the measurement of the Ankle-Arm Systolic Pressure Ratio ("AA-Ratio"). The magnitude of different sources of measurement variation, relevant to clinical practice as well as multi-observer studies, was estimated from a random effects analysis of variance model. Thirty-five GPs and 24 practice assistants performed 503 AA-Ratio measurements on nine patients over a period of nine weeks, using pocket Doppler devices. When the AA-Ratio is used for diagnostic purposes, a 95% prediction interval consisting of the measured value +/- 15-20% AA-Ratio has to be taken into account. Furthermore, when the AA-Ratio is used in the follow-up of a patient with vascular disease, the difference between two subsequent measurements has to be at least 15.6-19.0% AA-Ratio to have an 80% certainty that this difference is not due to (intra-observer) measurement error.
- Published
- 1991