Development and clinical validation of the short version of the NIMHANS-NMHS-2 disability scale
TS Jaisoorya, J Lakshmi, VS Binu, Girish N. Rao, Vivek BenegalABSTRACT
Background and Aim:
This study reports the development of the 8-item NIMHANS-NMHS-2 Disability Scale-Short Version (NNDS-SV) from the 13-item NIMHANS-NMHS-2 Disability Scale (NNDS), aiming to reduce the administration time without compromising its psychometric properties.
Methods:
An 8-item version was derived from the original 13-item NNDS via expert consensus and high response frequencies. Secondary analysis of the original validation data examined correlations between the NNDS-SV with the NNDS, WHO Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0), and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Independent clinical validation of the NNDS-SV was then undertaken.
Results:
In secondary analysis, the NNDS-SV correlated strongly with the NNDS (rho = 0.988), WHO-DAS (rho = 0.918), and BPRS (rho = 0.792). Independent clinical validation (n-81) confirmed high concurrent validity with WHODAS (rho = 0.94) and discriminant validity with BPRS (rho = 0.80) with a reduced administration time of 4–6 minutes.
Conclusion:
The NNDS-SV demonstrates robust psychometric properties and is optimized for large-scale epidemiological studies and has been used in NMHS-2.