Validity, reliability, and feasibility of the Brief School Needs Inventory: Evaluating educational risk for students...

Researchers have increasingly emphasized the need to include routine educational and cognitive screening in the care plan for youth with chronic health conditions. Prior to now, a screener did not exist to asses risk/need in education in the pediatric setting; thus, this research aimed to examine the validity, reliability, and feasibility of the newly developed Brief School Needs Inventory (BSNI), which stratifies a patients level of educational risk/need in the context of a health condition.

The authors developed and pilot-tested two versions of an education risk screener utilizing a mixed-methods design, which included an expert panel review process and assessments for validity, reliability, and feasibility.

Ninety-eight school-age survivors of an oncologic disease were assessed for educational risk. Participants were assigned to two groups and administered either the initial (n = 48) or revised (n = 50) version of the screener. The final version of the screener, the BSNI, predicted educational risk in congruence with school liaisons perceived risk assessment with 94% accuracy. Liaisons also reported confidence in the results of 98% of cases for the BSNI. Similarly, expert panel results for the BSNI indicated a high degree of interrater agreement and content validity.

The BSNI was found to be a valid and reliable screener for predicting educational risk for youth with oncologic conditions; future studies will examine use of the screener within other pediatric chronic populations.