An Assessment of the Agreement between Persian Medicine Experts on Mizaj Identification

Abstract

Although Mizaj (temperament) as a basic concept is introduced by ten criteria in Persian Medicine (PM), methods of assessment and priorities of these criteria are unclear. Having expert teams with an acceptable consensus in clinical diagnosis is one of the basic requirements to design and standardize Mizaj diagnostic scales. In this cross-sectional study, three PM specialists assessed the Mizaj of 150 healthy volunteers. At the first step of this study, each participant was separately visited by raters to determine warmness-coldness and wetness-dryness. To assess the agreement between experts, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC), weighted kappa (wk) and Spearman correlation Coefficient (r) were calculated. At the second step in an expert panel discussion, agreed criteria in 10 criteria of Mizaj identification were extracted. ICC between expert was 0.62 (CI: 0.53-0.73) in warmness-coldness and 0.64 (CI: 0.56-0.72) in wetness-dryness. Wk and r between every two experts were in the range of 0.41-0.60 and 0.58-0.67, in warmness-coldness and in the range of 0.49-0.61 and 0.58-0.69 in dryness-wetness, respectively. In determining warmness-coldness of Mizaj, psychic function, impressibility speed, muscle and fat mass, physical functions and touch condition were mostly used. In addition, muscle and fat mass, touch and sleep condition were mostly used in regard with dryness-wetness aspect of Mizaj. The agreements between three experts seem acceptable. It can be concluded that the weights of 10 criteria for Mizaj assessment in PM are not equal. The aims of the future studies in this field can be weighing these criteria.