The Mental Disability Military Assessment Tool: A Reliable Tool for Determining Disability in Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Purpose An assessment tool was developed to assess disability in veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to a military mission. The objective of this study was to determine the reliability, intra-rater and inter-rater variation of the Mental Disability Military (MDM) assessment tool. Methods Twenty-four assessment interviews of veterans with an insurance physician were videotaped. Each videotaped interview was assessed by a group of five independent raters on limitations of the veterans using the MDM assessment tool. After 2 months the raters repeated this procedure. Next the intra-rater and inter-rater variation was assessed with an adjusted version of AG09 computing weighted percentage agreement. Results The results of this study showed that both the intra-rater variation and inter-rater variation on the ten subcategories of the MDM assessment tool were small, with an agreement of 84-100 % within raters and 93-100 % between raters. Conclusions The MDM assessment tool proves to be a reliable instrument to measure PTSD limitations in functioning in Dutch military veterans who apply for disability compensation. Further research is needed to assess the validity of this instrument.