Establishment and validation of visual assessment for the severity of lacrimal groove wrinkles in Chinese females

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to establish and validate a new wrinkle clinical assessment scale to measure Chinese Han women`s validated lacrimal groove. METHODS: Three clinical investigators asked to rate lacrimal groove wrinkles severity one each side for 30 photographic images from 15 subjects. Five‐grade rating scale has been used in this clinical assessment. Scale definitions was standardized by 6 researchers in visual and descriptive formats. Assessments were conducted independently and were repeated after 1 week. RESULTS: For 30 photos from 15 subjects, test‐retest of three investigators analyzed by Spearman's correlation were between 0.967 and 0.993 (p < 0.001), and by ICC Cronbach's α were between 0.989 and 0.997 (p < 0.001); intraobserver agreement of three investigators analyzed by Spearman's correlation were between 0.652 and 0.897 (p < 0.001), and by ICC Cronbach's α were between 0.840 and 0.959 (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: This lacrimal groove wrinkles visual assessment scale is a valid and reliable instrument for quantitative assessment of China woman skin folds with inter‐ and intraobserver consistency. This assessment scale should prove a useful clinical tool by allowing objective and reproducible grading for assessing the effectiveness of lacrimal groove area.