The Development and Well-Being Assessment: Description and Initial Validation of an Integrated Assessment of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

Abstract

The Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) is a novel package of questionnaires, interviews, and rating techniques designed to generate ICD-10 and DSM-IV psychiatric diagnoses on 5-16-year-olds. Nonclinical interviewers administer a structured interview to parents about psychiatric symptoms and resultant impact. When definite symptoms are identified by the structured questions, interviewers use open-ended questions and supplementary prompts to get parents to describe the problems in their own words. These descriptions are transcribed verbatim by the interviewers but are not rated by them. A similar interview is administered to 11-16-year-olds. Teachers complete a brief questionnaire covering the main conduct, emotional, and hyperactivity symptoms and any resultant impairment. The different sorts of information are brought together by a computer program that also predicts likely diagnoses. These computer-generated summary sheets and diagnoses form a convenient starting point for experienced clinical raters, who decide whether to accept or overturn the computer diagnosis (or lack of diagnosis) in the light of their review of all the data, including transcripts. In the present study, the DAWBA was administered to community (N = 491) and clinic (N = 39) samples. There was excellent discrimination between community and clinic samples in rates of diagnosed disorder. Within the community sample, subjects with and without diagnosed disorders differed markedly in external characteristics and prognosis. In the clinic sample, there was substantial agreement between DAWBA and case note diagnoses, though the DAWBA diagnosed more comorbid disorders. The use of screening questions and skip rules greatly reduced interview length by allowing many sections to be omitted with very little loss of positive information. Overall, the DAWBA successfully combined the cheapness and simplicity of respondent-based measures with the clinical persuasiveness of investigator-based diagnoses. The DAWBA has considerable potential as an epidemiological measure, and may prove to be of clinical value too.

When to Use Broader Internalising and Externalising Subscales Instead of the Hypothesised Five Subscales on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): Data from British Parents, Teachers and Children

“…Thus all five subscales appeared to have the potential to play a distinct, useful role when predicting child mental disorders, and this included subscales such as parent-reported peer problems which showed poor construct validity and internal reliability in the MTMM analyses. These findings are consistent with the fact that algorithms based on the five separate subscales have shown good performance in predicting type of disorder in clinics (R. Goodman, Renfrew, et al, 2000) or in the skip-rules of the DAWBA (R. Goodman, Ford, et al, 2000). They also highlight the vital importance of using multiple approaches to examine construct validity, and thereby building up a more complete and more nuanced picture of a measure's performance.…”

“…This is a detailed psychiatric interview administered by lay interviewers to parents and youth, with a briefer questionnaire for teachers (R. Goodman, Ford, Richards, Gatward, & Meltzer, 2000). Each section of the DAWBA uses skip-rules, one component of which is the relevant SDQ subscale; for example, the hyperactivity SDQ subscale for the hyperactivity disorder section.…”

Peer Victimization in Childhood and Internalizing Problems in Adolescence: A Prospective Longitudinal Study

“…As the aim of the study was not to investigate prevalence of victimization or internalizing problems but to study peer victimization as a long-term risk factor for internalizing problems, a restricted sample was selected for analysis: the children had to have participated and have valid data for all of the following assessments: (a) self-reported peer victimization at either 8 or 10 years; (b) internalizing symptoms, comprising depression symptoms on the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (Angold et al 1995) at ages 11, 12, 13 and 14 years, and negative emotionality symptoms on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (R. Goodman, 1997) at 12 and 13 years; (c) DSM-IV diagnosis of internalizing disorders, i.e. depressive disorder and anxiety disorder at 13 years measured by the Development and Well-Being Assessment (R. Goodman et al 2000). A total of 3692 children (25.4% of the total cohort) satisfied these criteria (see Table 1 for a comparison between included and excluded participants).…”

Mechanisms underpinning inattention and hyperactivity: neurocognitive support for ADHD dimensionality

“…The ADHD section of the Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA; Goodman et al 2000) (no skipping rules) was used to assess inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity in the total sample. Each of the 18 ADHD symptoms has a three-option response scale 'No more than other', 'A little more than others' and 'A lot more than others', representing a score of 0, 1 and 2 respectively.…”