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.