CAMHS dependency scoring: clarity and clinical relevance of the CAMHS-AID.
OBJECTIVE
A dependency measure (the CAMHS-AID) was developed in Birmingham and Manchester to support more accurate decisions about whether a young person can be accommodated on a child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) inpatient unit. This study aimed to test the content and face validity of the scale.


METHODS
Eighty-six nursing staff were provided with booklets of the randomly ordered CAMHS-AID items and asked to rate the clarity of the items and how well they reflected clinical practice on a 5-point scale.


RESULTS
The majority of the items were given a score of four or five, indicating that the majority of the CAMHS nurses felt that the CAMHS-AID items were very clear and understandable and accurately reflected clinical practice. There was greater variance when rating the clinical relevance of the items; the higher the grade of nurse the more likely they were to rate the items a 5 for clinical relevance.


CONCLUSIONS
The CAMHS-AID has good content and face validity. We are continuing to investigate other aspects of validity and reliability of this context specific dependency scoring tool.
Abeles
Paul
P
Booth Hall, Children's Hospital, Manchester. Paul.Abeles@CMMC.nhs.uk
Holmes
Eleri
E
Wadge
Malli
M
Hodgkinson
Peter
P
Danquah
Adam
A
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D008605:Mental Health Services; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital