@article {Kandray134, author = {Diane P. Kandray and Debbie Juruaz and Mary Yacovone and G. Andy Chang}, title = {Inter-Rater Reliability of the Mallampati Classification for Patients in a Dental Hygiene Clinic}, volume = {87}, number = {3}, pages = {134--139}, year = {2013}, publisher = {American Dental Hygienists{\textquoteright} Association}, abstract = {Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the inter-rater reliability between dental hygiene students and a supervising dentist using the Mallampati classification to evaluate and classify the pharyngeal soft tissues. Methods: A sample of 234 patients volunteered for the study. Mallampati classifications were performed by 21 dental hygiene students for patients during a 12 month period. During that same time period, the clinic dentist performed an independent assessment on the same patients. Quantitative research methods were used to evaluate the inter-rater reliability between dental hygiene students and the clinical dentist in performing the Mallampati classification. The data was analyzed using adjusted McNemar test for non-independent data, Kappa score and percentage of agreement with 95\% bootstrap confidence interval. Results: There was an agreement between the dental hygiene student and the dentist in the majority of the independent assessments with a p-value=0.498 from the adjusted McNemar test. Inter-rater agreement measured by Cohen{\textquoteright}s Kappa coefficient was 0.54 with a 95\% bootstrap confidence interval of 0.42, 0.64. The percentage agreement was around 77\% with a 95\% confidence interval of 72\%, 82\%. Conclusion: It was concluded that dental hygiene students can evaluate and classify the pharyngeal soft tissues comparable to a supervising dentist in the clinical dental hygiene setting.}, issn = {1553-0205}, URL = {https://jdh.adha.org/content/87/3/134}, eprint = {https://jdh.adha.org/content/87/3/134.full.pdf}, journal = {American Dental Hygienists{\textquoteright} Association} }