Comparing Rater Reliability of Familiar Practitioners to Blinded Coders

The purpose of this study is to determine how coders who have seen multiple time points of the same dyad, and are therefore familiar with the case, rate emotional connection using the WECS compared to coders who are blinded to the case's previous time points.

The investigator hypothesizes that the WECS will show external validity: that all coders will have high reliability on their WECS scores, despite exposure to the dyads' past videos by the clinical coders.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Premature Birth; Child Development

Detailed Description

The purpose of this study is to determine the external validity of a scale for emotional connection between children and their parents through a retrospective longitudinal study. The Welch Emotional Connection Scale (WECS) is a screen that allows healthcare providers to rate the emotional connection of a mother-child relationship in just a few minutes of observed interaction, and shows preliminary predictive properties when performed in the first year of the child's life. Administration of the WECS involves watching interactions of a child sitting face-to-face on a parent's lap, and scores the interaction on sliding scales in 4 domains. During the WECS development, the Nurture Science Program of Columbia University Medical Center created and coded hours of parent-child interaction videos. This video data set will be used to determine how clinical WECS scores, where raters are familiar with mother-child dyads over time, compare to research WECS scores, where rate-rs are blinded to each case. The WECS scores of clinical coders, who are exposed to the same case at different time points, will be compared to blinded coders who see cases at just one time point. To simulate implementation of the WECS in a clinical setting, two primary care nurse practitioner (PNP) students who are trained in rating emotional connection will view videos to rate the emotional connection of mother-child dyads collected at different time points. To recreate WECS used in a research setting, blinded coders trained in rating emotional connection will rate the emotional connection of the same video data set. Each blinded coder will only view a dyad once, to not be influenced by previous time points of the same subject. The inter-rater reliability of the blinded and clinical coders will be determined. The comparison of inter-rater reliability scores between clinical and blinded coders is the main outcome of this study.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 90

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10032
      • Columbia University Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 4 months to 50 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: N/A
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Children and their parents who had not participated in previously conducted studies (AAAD0389)

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Children and their parents who participated in previously conducted studies (AAAD0389)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Children and their parents who had not participated in previously conducted studies (AAAD0389)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Intra-Class Correlations of Welch Emotional Connection Screen (WECS) Scores	Blinded Intra-Class Correlations of WECS Scores; Clinical intra-class correlations of WECS Scores. The Welch Emotional Connection Scale (WECS) is an investigational developmental screening tool, developed to rate the quality of the emotional connection that formed between mother and child. The scale is administered in 2-3 minutes by observing a mother and child interact, and requires the rater to critically assess 4 sub-domains of emotional connection. The WECS is scored on intervals of 0.25, with a minimum of 1 (little or no connection) and maximum of 3 (high connection). Separately from these scores, the final portion of the screen determines, "Is the dyad emotionally connected?" and is scored with "No" or "Yes."	2018 - 2019

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Columbia University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 30, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): August 23, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): August 23, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 19, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 19, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): September 21, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 15, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 13, 2023
• Last Verified: February 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: premature birth; child development; emotional connection; Martha G. Welch
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pregnancy Complications; Obstetric Labor Complications; Obstetric Labor, Premature; Premature Birth
• Other Study ID Numbers: AAAS0811

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No