Development and reliability of the Royal College of Physicians stroke audit form. UK Stroke Audit Group.

This article reports the development of an audit form for assessing the quality of stroke care from medical records. A consensus conference to define standards was followed by testing of pilot versions of the audit form. Then formal assessment of inter-rater reliability was carried out in four centres using 76 medical records, each assessed by two of eight auditors. Inter-rater reliability was acceptable, especially when medically qualified auditors were used.