Is ROME III criteria for functional abdominal pain in children reliable?
Diagnosis of functional abdominal pain conditions is based on the pediatric Rome criteria. The reliability of the Rome III criteria has not been established. A total of 10 pediatric gastroenterologist specialists and 10 pediatric gastroenterology fellows were provided with 20 clinical vignettes and a list of 17 possible diagnoses (all pediatric categories of the Rome criteria plus “none of the above” or “not enough information”) and instructed to select one or more diagnosis for each vignette. The average percentage of agreement among the raters was 50% for the pediatric gastroenterologists and 45% for the pediatric gastroenterology fellows. The inter-rater percentage of agreement per clinical case was >50% in only 7 out of 20 (35%) vignettes for the gastroenterologists and only 6 out of 20 (30%) cases for the fellows. The IRR among pediatric gastroenterologists and fellows was found to be fair to moderate for the Rome III criteria. Only slight to fair agreement between raters existed
