A bootstrap method for comparing correlated kappa coefficients

Cohen’s kappa coefficient is traditionally used to quantify the degree of agreement between two raters on a nominal scale. Correlated kappas occur in many settings (e.g., repeated agreement by raters on the same individuals, concordance between diagnostic tests and a gold standard) and often need to be compared. While different techniques are now available to model correlated κ coefficients, they are generally not easy to implement in practice. The present paper describes a simple alternative method based on the bootstrap for comparing correlated kappa coefficients. The method is illustrated by examples and its type I error studied using simulations. The method is also compared with the generalized estimating equations of the second order and the weighted least-squares methods.