A brief version of the Scale of Emotional Development – Short

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundThe Scale of Emotional Development – Short (SED‐S) captures the level of emotional development in persons with a disorder of intellectual development (DID) with 200 items on five developmental levels. The study aims to develop a brief version of the SED‐S.MethodsBased on item analysis (proportions, χ2‐test, Spearman's ρ and corrected item–total correlation), a brief version of the SED‐S was developed in a sample of 224 adults with a DID (n1) and validated in a second independent matched sample (n2 = 223).ResultsItem reliability ranged per item set from Cronbach's α = 0.835 to 0.924. Weighted kappa resulted in κω = 0.743 (P < 0.001, 95% confidence interval = 0.690–0.802). Overall agreement of the brief version with the original SED‐S was PO = 0.7. The brief version of the SED‐S showed weaknesses in distinguishing level 2 from the adjacent levels.ConclusionsThe brief version of the SED‐S showed good reliability and moderate to good validity results. Items of phase 2 and, to some degree, of phase 5 should be revised to further improve the psychometric properties of the scale.