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Abstract
Background: Despite the ubiquitous use of Subjective Units of Distress scales (SUDs) in mental health settings to establish levels of distressing emotion, there has been little empirical research in this area. SUDs are commonly used in therapy and assessments, and are a particularly useful tool for establishing current and previous levels of distress in children and young people.
Aims: To explore the use of the SUD analogue rating scale in initial child mental health assessments to better understand its application in this context.
Method: The data corpus consisted of 28 naturally-occurring video recordings of children and young people attending their first assessment appointment at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). A thematic analysis was utilised to explore the specific interactional use of SUDs.
Results: Four themes were identified; recency, longevity, context and miscommunication. The first three themes were found to supplement the child’s emotional score on the scale and were important in establishing the necessity for further therapeutic support. Miscommunication as a theme highlighted the need for clarity when using SUDs with children and young people.
Conclusions: Recommendations were suggested for practitioners working with children and young people relating to the extended use of rating scales in clinical assessments.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the other members of the research team; Khalid Karim, Ian Hutchby and Victoria Stafford. They would also like to thank the clinical team and clinical managers for providing access to the service. Equally, they thank all of the participating families, children and other members for providing consent.
Declaration of interest
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.