Inter-Rater Reliability of the Mealtime Scan+.

Abstract

The Mealtime Scan (MTS) was developed to assess the dining environment in Long Term Care (LTC). MTS has been reviewed and updated to ensure its standardization and responsiveness to changes in the dining environment. The objectives of this paper are to provide an overview of the changes made in the new MTS+ tool and to describe its inter-rater reliability. The observational and scoring methods used to evaluate the physical, social, and relational-centered dining environments in LTC homes were reviewed and updated into MTS+ and an overall quality of dining rating derived. Two trained assessors were evaluated for the inter-rater reliability. Nine dining rooms in three LTC homes at different meals were observed for a total of 45 observations. Interclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was used to assess reliability. MTS+ demonstrated good reliability on the orientation cues, social environment, and relationship-centered activities (orientation cues ICC: 0.75, social ICC: 0.78, relational ICC: 0.78). However, the tool's reliability was poor for the physical environment, ICC: 0.48 and moderate for the overall rating of the quality of the dining environment, ICC: 0.67. Discussion and Implications: Although deemed more effective and practical for use in intervention studies, MTS+ has some limitations with respect to its reliability, particularly in assessing the physical environment. It is hypothesized that more extensive training of the assessors may lead to improvements in the reliability of MTS+. MTS+ can be used in intervention research when one assessor completes repeat observations of a dining area.