The extent of inter- and intrareviewer agreement on the classification and assessment of designs of single-practice research.

The aim of this study was to investigate how much inter- and intrareviewer agreement there was with regard to the classification of research designs and the assessment of the methodological quality of research reports. This was done by means of formal criteria and criteria relating to content. Three successive reliability tests were performed on two random samples of reports of single-practice research in general practice. Inter- and intrareviewer agreement on the classification tended to be satisfactory. The results of the tests to assess the methodological quality were, however, more deviant, the interreviewer agreement ranging from predominantly mediocre/poor to mostly good and intrareviewer agreement ranging from mediocre to good. These results emphasize the need for further discussion and follow-up research.