The Respiratory Distress Observation Scale^© (RDOS) is a means for assessing respiratory distress when a patient is unable to give a dyspnea self-report. Cut-point determination was needed to guide clinical application.

A Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted in a prospective, observation study with inpatients ranked by nurse practitioners (NP) into levels of respiratory distress. A research assistant simultaneously measured RDOS blinded to NP ranking.