The ESSENCE‐Q: Can specialist supervision improve scoring agreement across specialist and public health nurses/nursery teachers?

Abstract

AbstractAimThis study aimed to explore whether the supervision of community public health nurses (PHNs) and nursery school teachers (NSTs) by a specialist, familiar with Early Symptomatic Syndromes Eliciting Neurodevelopmental Clinical Examinations (ESSENCE), improved the agreement of ESSENCE‐Questionnaire (ESSENCE‐Q) scoring, across raters.MethodsA PHN, two NSTs, and a speech‐language pathologist (SLP), familiar with ESSENCE, independently assessed 32 children. The ESSENCE‐Q results were divided into the first (child 1–18) and second groups (the 19th child and the following children). Changes in score discrepancies were analysed for ESSENCE‐Q cutoff scores and total ESSENCE‐Q scores across raters. The SLP scores were used as a reference to evaluate sensitivity and specificity.ResultsThe total ESSENCE‐Q scores of the PHN and NSTs showed higher concordance in the second group (p < 0.05). Comparisons of the differences between the PHN/NSTs and SLP in total ESSENCE‐Q scores showed a significantly smaller difference in the NSTs' scores in the second group (p < 0.05).ConclusionThe findings suggest that specialist supervision may lead to a better agreement between PHN and NSTs regarding ESSENCE‐Q scores.