Sedation levels in dogs: a validation study
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Veterinary Medicine
- Keywords
- reliability, dexmedetomidine, validity, canine, anesthesia
- Copyright
- © 2016 Wagner et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Sedation levels in dogs: a validation study. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2485v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2485v1
Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess validation evidence for a sedation scale for dogs. We hypothesized that the chosen sedation scale would be unreliable when used by different raters and show poor discrimination between sedation protocols. A sedation scale was used to score 62 dogs scheduled to receive sedation at two veterinary clinics in a prospective trial. Scores recorded by a single observer were used to assess internal consistency and construct validity of the scores. To assess inter-rater reliability, video-recordings of sedation assessment were randomized and blinded for viewing by 5 raters untrained in the scale. Videos were also edited to allow assessment of inter-rater reliability of an abbreviated scale by 5 different raters. Both sedation scales exhibited excellent internal consistency and very good inter-rater reliability (full scale, ICCsingle = 0.95; abbreviated scale, ICCsingle = 0.94). The full scale discriminated between the most common protocols: dexmedetomidine-hydromorphone (11 [1-18], n = 20) and acepromazine-hydromorphone (5 [0-15], n = 36, p = 0.02). The hypothesis was rejected. Full and abbreviated scales showed excellent internal consistency and very good reliability between multiple untrained raters. The full scale differentiated between levels of sedation.
Author Comment
This paper describes assessment of one of several scales used to measure sedation in dogs. In a heterogenous population of dogs we evaluated validity and reliability and found the scale to perform well. It could discriminate between different levels of sedation, was reliable with untrained raters and showed excellent internal consistency.
