Mingins, Jessica Eliza, Tarver, Joanne, Pearson, Effie, Edwards, Georgina, Bird, Megan, Crawford, Hayley, Oliver, Chris, Shelley, Lauren and Waite, Jane (2024). Development and psychometric properties of the Clinical Anxiety Scale for People with Intellectual Disabilities (ClASP-ID). Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 16 (1),
Abstract
Background: There is a critical need for the development of dependable and valid anxiety assessment tools suitable for people with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities, particularly those who speak few or no words. Distinguishing anxiety from distress caused by physical discomfort (pain) or characteristics associated with autism, prevalent in this population, necessitates specialised assessment tools. This study (a) developed a parent-report anxiety questionnaire tailored for individuals with severe to moderate intellectual disabilities, potentially with a co-diagnosis of autism, and (b) evaluated the psychometric attributes of this novel measure. Methods: A comprehensive approach involving literature reviews, inspection of existing tools, and interviews with clinicians and parents guided the creation of the Clinical Anxiety Scale for People with Intellectual Disabilities. The tool was completed by parents or caregivers (N = 311) reporting on individuals aged 4 or older with intellectual disabilities. Results: Exploratory factor analysis indicated a four-factor structure encompassing anxiety, pain, low energy/withdrawal, and consolability. The anxiety factor explained the most variance in scores (26.3%). The anxiety, pain, low energy/withdrawal subscales demonstrated robust internal consistency (α = 0.81-0.92), and convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity. Robustness of these subscales was further evidenced by test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.79-0.88) and inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.64-0.71). Subgroup analyses consistently demonstrated strong psychometric properties among individuals diagnosed with non-syndromic autism (N = 98), children (N = 135), adults (N = 175), and across diverse communication abilities within the sample. Moreover, individuals diagnosed with both autism and anxiety exhibited significantly higher scores on the anxiety subscale compared to those without an anxiety diagnosis, while showing no difference in autism characteristic scores. Conclusions: The findings indicate that the Clinical Anxiety Scale for People with Intellectual Disabilities is a promising measure for use across diverse diagnostic groups, varying communication abilities, and with people with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities.
Publication DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s11689-024-09554-9 |
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Divisions: | College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Institute of Health & Neurodevelopment (AIHN) College of Health & Life Sciences |
Funding Information: | This study was made possible through funding from Autistica, Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity, and Cerebra. |
Additional Information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | Questionnaire,Measure development,Mental Health,Autism,Intellectual disability,Assessment,Anxiety,Pain |
Publication ISSN: | 1866-1955 |
Data Access Statement: | The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. |
Last Modified: | 13 Aug 2024 16:22 |
Date Deposited: | 31 Jul 2024 15:23 |
Full Text Link: | |
Related URLs: |
https://jneurod ... 689-024-09554-9
(Publisher URL) |
PURE Output Type: | Article |
Published Date: | 2024-12 |
Published Online Date: | 2024-07-27 |
Accepted Date: | 2024-06-25 |
Authors: |
Mingins, Jessica Eliza
Tarver, Joanne ( ![]() Pearson, Effie ( ![]() Edwards, Georgina Bird, Megan Crawford, Hayley Oliver, Chris Shelley, Lauren Waite, Jane ( ![]() |