Reliability and validity of the Dutch Anxiety, Depression And Mood Scale in adults aged <50 years with intellectual disabilities.
Pauline C M Hamers, Jans S van Ool, Dederieke A M Festen and 3 others
PMID 30460756WHAT IT FOUND
A caregiver-completed Dutch questionnaire may be used to screen depressive and anxiety symptoms in adults with intellectual disabilities under 50, including those with epilepsy.
Key findings
01In 198 adults, the Dutch ADAMS total score had an internal consistency coefficient of 0.91, and the four subscales ranged from 0.76 to 0.87.
02Inter-rater agreement was 0.64 for the total score and 0.64 to 0.77 for subscales; test-retest agreement over 27 to 72 days was 0.71 for the total score and 0.72 to 0.79 for subscales.
03In the 43-participant validity sample, a Depressive Mood score of 14 or higher had sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 80% against the PAS-ADD depression interview.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The reliability and validity analyses used small subsamples, especially the 43 participants compared with the PAS-ADD depression interview. The subsamples did not fully represent the main sample: no adults with mild intellectual disabilities were included in the inter-rater sample, women were underrepresented in the test-retest sample, and the validity sample had fewer adults with mild intellectual disabilities and more with profound intellectual disabilities. The test-retest interval ranged from 27 to 72 days, so stability was not measured at a fixed follow-up time. The Dutch ADAMS is completed by professional caregivers as a proxy report, not by the adults themselves. Only the Depressive Mood subscale was compared with a clinical interview; the anxiety, social avoidance, and other problems subscales were not given the same diagnostic check.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. No funding source is stated in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that the Dutch ADAMS diagnoses depression or anxiety in individual adults. It was completed by caregivers, and the diagnostic comparison was small and only checked the Depressive Mood subscale.