The Eating Disorders Section of the Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA): development and validation

Abstract

Development and validation of the Eating Disorders Section of the Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA). It is a package of questionnaires, interviews and evaluation techniques, designed to generate DSM-IV and ICD-10 based diagnoses of anorexia, bulimia nervosa and the respective partial syndromes in epidemiological studies, in subjects who are 7 to 17 years old. The parents are interviewed in all cases, as are young people aged 11 or more. 174 girls, divided into three groups, were assessed with the Eating Disorders Section of the Development and Well-Being Assessment: 48 with eating disorders, 55 clinical controls (with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder or gastrointestinal disease) and 71 community controls. The sensitivity, specificity and predictive values of the assessment were investigated by comparing the Development and Well-Being Assessment diagnoses with independent psychiatric diagnoses. The test-retest reliability was investigated by reapplying the measure on 55 subjects after 2 or 3 weeks. For the detection of any DSM-IV and ICD-10 eating disorder, the final Development and Well-Being Assessment diagnosis had a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 94%, positive predictive value of 88%, and a negative predictive value of 100%; there was 95% agreement between the initial and repeat diagnoses (a kappa of 0.81). The Eating Disorders Section of the Development and Well-Being Assessment has suitable psychometric properties for use in clinical and epidemiological studies.