Clinical validity of the Me and My School questionnaire: a self-report mental health measure for children and adolescents.

Praveetha Patalay,Miranda Wolpert,Panos Vostanis,Peter Fonagy,Jessica Deighton

doi:10.1186/1753-2000-8-17

Abstract

BackgroundThe Me and My School Questionnaire (M&MS) is a self-report measure for children aged eight years and above that measures emotional difficulties and behavioural difficulties, and has been previously validated in a community sample. The present study aimed to assess its clinical sensitivity to justify its utility as a screening tool in schools.MethodsData were collected from service-users (n = 91, 8–15 years) and accompanying parent/carer in outpatient mental health services in England. A matched community sample (N = 91) were used to assess the measure’s ability to discriminate between low- and high-risk samples.ResultsReceiver operating curves (area under the curve, emotional difficulties = .79; behavioural difficulties = .78), mean comparisons (effect size, emotional difficulties d = 1.17, behavioural difficulties = 1.12) and proportions above clinical thresholds indicate that the measure satisfactorily discriminates between the samples. The scales have good internal reliability (emotional difficulties α = .84; behavioural difficulties α = .82) and cross-informant agreement with parent-reported symptoms is comparable to existing measures (r = .30).ConclusionThe findings of this study indicate that the M&MS sufficiently discriminates between high-risk (clinic) and low-risk (community) samples, has good internal reliability, compares favourably with existing self-report measures of mental health and has comparable levels of agreement between parent-report and self-report to other measures. Alongside existing validation of the M&MS, these findings justify the measures use as a self-report screening tool for mental health problems in community settings for children aged as young as 8 years.

Highlights

The Me and My School Questionnaire (M&MS) is a self-report measure for children aged eight years and above that measures emotional difficulties and behavioural difficulties, and has been previously validated in a community sample
The development of the Me and My School questionnaire M&MS; [9] filled a necessary gap for a free-to-use, short, self-report screening measure of child mental health that was suitable to use with a wider age range of young people and covers both emotional and behavioural difficulties
receiver operating curves (ROC) curves are based on statistical decision theory and demonstrate the ability of a test to discriminate between alternative states of health [18], in this case mental health

Summary

Introduction

The Me and My School Questionnaire (M&MS) is a self-report measure for children aged eight years and above that measures emotional difficulties and behavioural difficulties, and has been previously validated in a community sample. The development of the Me and My School questionnaire M&MS; [9] filled a necessary gap for a free-to-use, short, self-report screening measure of child mental health that was suitable to use with a wider age range of young people and covers both emotional and behavioural difficulties. The M&MS questionnaire has been validated with children as young as eight years old, which makes it (as far as the authors are aware), the only free to use, validated, self-report screening measure of general mental health for children of that age. Assessing the ability of the test to discriminate between community and clinic populations and the utility of the established cut-off scores are necessary steps in determining its utility as a screening tool [12]

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