Citation

Ford T, Hamilton H, Dosani S, Burke L, Goodman R. Soc. Psychiatry Psychiatr. Epidemiol. 2007; 42(1): 36-49.

Affiliation

Kings College London, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. t.ford@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00127-006-0092-9

PMID

16969603

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Children Service Interview was designed as a brief measure of service use related to mental health problems in Great Britain. METHOD: We validated the Children's Services Interview against medical records from a sample of 87 children, and assessed test-retest reliability from 25 parents completing two interviews. We examined criterion validity by looking at the service use patterns of children attending clinics for different types of disorders. RESULTS: The Children's Services Interview showed high levels of face validity and moderate or better concordance with medical records as far as contacts were recorded in the case notes. Test-retest reliability was moderate or better apart from contacts with the voluntary sector, teachers, and the number and duration of appointments with some professionals. CONCLUSION: The study suggests the Children's Services Interview can extract moderately valid and reliable data on service use. DECLARATION OF INTEREST: Tamsin Ford was supported by a Wellcome Clinical Training Fellowship in Health Services Research while completing this work.

Language: en