As part of Caitlin Murray’s Cerebra funded PhD, we looked at whether a general mental health measure for children (the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) is a good measure for children with intellectual disability. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire is a 25-item scale used to measure emotional and behavioural difficulties, originally in children without disabilities, but has often been used with children and young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The SDQ is commonly used in educational and clinical settings, as well as in research. Compared to other measures that look at emotional and behavioural difficulties, the SDQ is concise, requiring less time to complete, and is widely available.
In this study, we explored the clinical utility of the SDQ as a brief screen for emotional and behavioural difficulties in children and young people with ID. We looked at the sensitivity, or the ability of a screening instrument to generate a true positive result for someone with the outcome of interest (in this case, clinically significant emotional and behavioural difficulties). We also looked at specificity, or the ability of the measure to generate a true negative result for someone without the outcome of interest (someone without clinically significant emotional and behavioural difficulties). We found that the SDQ was a good measure for children and young people with ID. When sensitivity and specificity were balanced, the recommended cut-off score was a score of 17. This is the cut-off score used in children and young people without ID, which allows us to use the SDQ and the same cut-off score as a brief screening measure for children and young people with and without ID.
The full paper is linked here. If you have any questions about this study or would like further information, please contact us at [email protected].
Reference
Murray, C. A., Hastings, R. P., & Totsika, V. (2021). Clinical utility of the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as a screen for emotional and behavioural difficulties in children and adolescents with intellectual disability. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 218(6), 323–325.
