Initial validation of the Brief Assessment of Service Satisfaction in Persons with an Intellectual Disability (BASSPID).
The 15-item BASSPID is a reliable, valid tool you can use right now to ask clients with ID about their service satisfaction—just remember to collect data directly from clients, not proxies.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a short 15-question form called the BASSPID. It asks adults with intellectual disability how they feel about their day program or residence.
They checked that the questions make sense, repeat well, and match other satisfaction tools.
What they found
The BASSPID passed every test. It hangs together, gives the same answers week to week, and lines up with longer surveys.
Staff can now get direct client feedback in about five minutes.
How this fits with other research
Rojahn et al. (2012) already showed the Brief Symptom Inventory works for self-report in mild ID. The new BASSPID uses the same direct-client method, but for service happiness instead of mental-health symptoms.
Bigham et al. (2013) gave us the BSP-QEII to audit plan quality from the outside. BASSPID adds the inside view—what the client actually thinks—so you can pair both tools for a full picture.
Pereira et al. (2025) later validated the Portuguese BASIQ quality-of-life battery. Their work and BASSPID both argue that short, concrete questionnaires can guide funding choices in adult services.
Why it matters
Most programs still guess if clients are happy. Handing the BASSPID to each adult gives you numbers for reports, accreditation, and staff meetings. Try it during annual reviews or when a new service starts. One sheet, quick graph, clear next steps.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with an intellectual disability often require intensive services to promote their social participation to the fullest extent. As such, measuring satisfaction with these services appears essential to enhance the quality of life of individuals with an intellectual disability and to improve service delivery within agencies. Thus, the purpose of the study was to conduct an initial validation of the Brief Assessment of Service Satisfaction in Persons with an Intellectual Disability (BASSPID), a 15-item questionnaire designed to assess service satisfaction. To examine the structure, reliability, and validity of the BASSPID, we interviewed 98 individuals with an intellectual disability and 23 parents. Overall, the BASSPID contained one scale, which had strong content and convergent validity as well as items easily understandable for individuals with an intellectual disability. Furthermore, the questionnaire had good internal consistency and adequate test-retest reliability. However, parents generally overestimated the perceived satisfaction of their child. The study suggests that the BASSPID may be useful to assess the satisfaction of individuals with an intellectual disability, but more research is needed to examine its potential impact on improving service quality.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.10.009