CAMHS dependency scoring: clarity and clinical relevance of the CAMHS-AID.

AIM: 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. METHOD: 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. CONCLUSION: 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.

Measuring patient dependency in child and adolescent mental health.

Within the context of child and adolescent mental health inpatient services, a literature review was undertaken to understand the concept of inpatient dependency and how it can be measured. Articles and books relating to patient dependency and its measurement in various contexts were retrieved, and other published measures were identified. It was found that dependency has been defined in many different ways, and various techniques have aimed to quantify or categorize patients' dependencies. This article focuses particularly on measures used in adult psychiatry and paediatric services. At present, there is no available established measure of patient dependency in child and adolescent inpatients. This article identifies the need to develop a measure of inpatient dependency that is specifically designed for these services, and outlines a tool that the authors have recently designed.

Dependency scoring for child and adolescent inpatient mental health services.

Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) inpatient units provide multi-disciplinary treatment for young people with a wide range of complex needs, many of whom have co-morbid presentations. There is no reliable, validated measure of CAMHS patient dependency. This article reports the first stages of a project to develop a properly researched dependency measure for use before (i.e. by those referring the young person) and during the young person's stay. Expert opinion was sought to develop a list of statements regarding a young person's care which could be rated according to level of need. Initial piloting demonstrated face and concurrent validity; next steps include exploring issues of item ambiguity and weighting.