Development and Wellbeing Asessment in Child/Adolescent Mental Health
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development and Wellbeing Assessment in Child and Adolescent Mental Health: an evaluation of feasibility in Primary Care
IRAS ID
157964
Contact name
Philip Wilson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Highland Research & Development
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services are lengthy and potentially damaging in conditions which are sensitive to the maturation processes. In addition there are certain conditions where diagnostic categories overlap to such an extent that selection of an appropriate service for initial referral may be difficult. Examples might include conduct disorder, language delay and global learning difficulties.
The Development and Wellbeing Assessment (DAWBA: http://www.dawba.com/) is a computerised structured instrument for gathering psychiatric diagnostic data from families and teachers and of children aged 5-16 years and from young people themselves if aged over 10 years. The DAWBA assessment can be administered face-to-face, by telephone or online by people with minimal training. Administration takes 40-50 minutes, and up to 2 hours in the most complex cases. At the end of the interview(s), a computerised summary is generated from the data given by all the informants and a clinical rater (a child/adolescent psychiatrist) lists the likely diagnosis or diagnoses. The clinical rating usually takes a few seconds, but can take up to 10 minutes in the most complex cases. There is a very close correspondence between DAWBA diagnoses and clinical case note diagnoses.
The Development and Wellbeing Assessment has been used in two very large Office for National Statistics surveys of the mental health of children and young people in the UK. Although it has been used to supplement clinical assessment; we are not aware of its use as a tool to aid referral from Primary care, though research into potential use as a triage tool has been advocated.
This study aims to establish the utility of the DAWBA in the early assessment of children and young people with potential mental health problems.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
14/NS/1070
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion