The Kids Insight into Dementia Survey (KIDS): development and preliminary psychometric properties

Abstract

Results support the use of KIDS as a tool to measure children's insight into dementia, and to evaluate dementia education initiatives targeting the youth.

Development of the Adolescent Attitudes towards Dementia Scale (A‐ADS)

“…Based on feedback obtained from the interviews, the wording of some items was substantially amended to be more simple and straightforward for young people to complete (see Table ). This also follows Baker and colleagues who adapted wording to be more “child‐friendly” in their scale for children.…”

“…The present study reports the development of the Adolescent Attitudes towards Dementia Scale (A‐ADS). It is hoped that the development of this scale encourages research into the attitudes of adolescents, a research area that until now has focused mainly on adults . This is particularly important as interventions to tackle stigma towards dementia at an early age are thought to be key to developing positive attitudes .…”

“…There are mixed messages about existing knowledge and attitudes of young people towards dementia. A recent study identified that over a third of children aged 10 to 12 had not heard of either dementia or Alzheimer's Disease . However, a UK government poll indicated that over half of the 8 to 17 year olds surveyed stated that if people understood more about dementia, life would improve for those affected and an Alzheimer's Society survey found that 65% of the children surveyed said they believed people living with dementia should be supported and included in everyday life .…”

“…To effectively establish the attitudes of children and young people towards dementia, a validated measure needs to be developed. Whilst 2 measures of attitudes towards people living with dementia have been developed and validated for adults, and more recently for children aged 10 to 12, there is no measure specifically for adolescents. A validated measure designed to capture the attitudes of young people towards dementia would facilitate the development of research in this area and also strengthen the effectiveness of evaluations of dementia education initiatives …”

The development and validation of the adolescent level of contact with dementia scale

“…studies have adapted and utilised the measure in a number of samples, including adolescents. [24][25][26][27] Items from the existing level of contact questionnaire were altered to capture adolescents' level of contact with 'people living with dementia' rather than people with 'mental illness'. New items were drawn to reflect both direct contact with people with dementia, but also more passive contact with dementia (eg, through social media).…”