The development and evaluation of the paediatric index of emotional distress (PI-ED)

PURPOSE: Current measures of anxiety and depression for children and young people (CYP) include somatic symptoms and can be lengthy. They can inflate scores in cases where there is also physical illness, contain potentially distressing symptoms for some settings and be impractical in clinical practice. The present study aimed to develop and evaluate a new questionnaire, the paediatric index of emotional distress (PI-ED), to screen for emotional distress in CYP, modelled on the hospital anxiety and depression scale. METHODS: A school-based sample (n = 1026) was employed to examine the PI-ED’s psychometric properties and a clinical sample of CYP (n = 143) was used to establish its sensitivity and specificity. RESULTS: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified a bi-factor model with a general emotional distress factor (‘cothymia’) and anxiety and depression as co-factors. The PI-ED demonstrated good psychometric properties and clinical utility with a cutoff score of 20. CONCLUSION: The PI-ED is a brief, valid and reliable clinical screening tool for emotional distress in CYP.