Inter-rater reliability of the Developmental Behaviour Checklist for Adults in community accommodation settings.
Two untrained paid carers can complete the DBC-A with acceptable agreement, so you can use it right away in group homes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked two paid carers in each of 23 group homes to rate the same adult with intellectual disability. Both carers filled out the Developmental Behaviour Checklist for Adults (DBC-A) on the same day.
The team then ran a statistic called ICC to see how closely the two carers agreed. A score above 0.60 is considered okay for screening tools.
What they found
The ICC landed at 0.69. That means the carers' answers matched well enough to trust the checklist for day-to-day screening.
No extra training was given. The checklist worked with the normal staff already working the shift.
How this fits with other research
Hatton et al. (2005) built the DBC-A and first showed it was reliable. The 2011 study extends that work by proving everyday paid carers can use it in real homes, not just research clinics.
Straccia et al. (2014) later repeated the psychometrics in French and found the same six-factor structure. Together these papers form a chain: build tool → test in homes → test in new language.
Davis et al. (1994) tested an older checklist called PIMRA. They also found only modest inter-rater reliability. The DBC-A now supersedes PIMRA because it holds better agreement between raters.
Why it matters
You can hand the DBC-A to any two staff on duty and feel safe using their average score to decide if an adult needs a mental-health referral. No extra observer training, no special observer visits. Just print the form, ask two carers to fill it independently, and average the totals. If you still use PIMRA or other old tools, consider switching to the DBC-A for sharper agreement.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: With the publication of the Developmental Behaviour Checklist for Adults (DBC-A), people of all ages with intellectual disability (ID) can now be assessed using a carer-completed screening checklist of emotional and behavioural disturbance. This provides a broad assessment framework across the life span, assists the process of clinical assessment, diagnosis and management, and, through efficient screening, helps ensure that people with ID and high levels of disturbed behaviour are more likely to receive the often scarce and costly behavioural and mental health services that are available. Earlier studies have reported acceptable results of test-retest reliability studies with family members and paid carers in community settings and the results of an inter-rater reliability study completed with family members. This study reports on another aspect of DBC-A reliability, inter-rater reliability with paid carers, in two small community-based accommodation settings. METHOD: Participants were 38 pairs of paid carers employed by two non-government agencies providing residential services in small group homes to 38 adults with ID in the community. RESULTS: An intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.69 (n = 38, 95% CI 0.54-0.86) was found between pairs of paid carers employed in small group homes. DISCUSSION: Pairs of paid carers working with adults with ID in small group homes reliably completed DBC-A checklists. An ICC result of 0.69 compares favourably with the results of an earlier inter-rater study completed with the family members of people with ID living in the community. Inter-rater reliability on the six DBC-A sub-scales was also computed and the results were satisfactory. CONCLUSIONS: The carer-completed DBC-A provides a broad and comprehensive survey of the emotional and behavioural problems of adults with ID. It has satisfactory psychometric properties, which have been further extended. The DBC-A can be used in clinical, research and service settings to assess psychopathology across the adult life span in people with ID.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2011 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01372.x