A new measure for infant mental health screening: development and initial validation

Ammitzbøll, Janni; Holstein, Bjørn E.; Wilms, Lisbeth; Andersen, Anette; Skovgaard, Anne Mette

doi:10.1186/s12887-016-0744-1

BMC Pediatrics

Table 1 The Copenhagen Infant Mental Health Screening (CIMHS)

From: A new measure for infant mental health screening: development and initial validation

Domain	Item	Description
Sleep regulation	Stable sleeping pattern	The child has established a steady pattern for sleeping and being awake	Yes	no
	Falling asleep time	The child falls asleep within one hour	Yes	no
	Interrupted sleep	The child is able to sleep at least three consecutive hours	Yes	no
Eating	Appetite regulation	The child indicates clearly when it is hungry or full	Yes	no
	Eats too little	The child has to be pressured to eat enough	Yes	no
	Refusal to eat	The child refuses food even though it has not eaten for a long time	Yes	no
	Vomiting without otherwise being ill	The child vomits more than once a week	Yes	no
Expression of emotions	Generally happy and satisfied	The child is happy and satisfied more than 80% of its waking time	Yes	no
	Often irritable, fussy, dissatisfied	The child has at least two episodes every day where it is irritable, fussy, dissatisfied	Yes	no
	Cries often	The child cries more than one hour every day	Yes	no
	Emotionally blunted	The child shows no happiness, has limited facial expression and seems sad more than 50% of its waking time	Yes	no
Curiosity and interest	Curiosity, exploring	The child shows interest in its surroundings, examines its toys	Yes	no
Attention	Is able to focus	The child watch something or listen for more than one minute	Yes	no
	Maintain concentration	The child is able to examine toys for more than two minutes	Yes	no
	Easily distracted	The child is distracted by sounds, lights, movements, even while playing and does not return to its original activity	Yes	no
Motor activity	Generally increased level of activity	The child is characterized by a high level of activity restlessness	Yes	no
	Generally reduced level of activity	The child has a passive motoric, is mainly inactive	Yes	no
	Impulsiveness	The child is unpredictably active, throws things suddenly	Yes	no
Social communication and interaction	Eye contact	The child is able to establish eye contact. The Visiting Nurse is not in doubt that the child sees her eyes	Yes	no
	Contact smile	The child smiles to the Visiting Nurse when eye contact is made	Yes	no
	Proximity seeking	The child seeks contact with smiling, chattering, touching or reaching out after its parents	Yes	no
	Mutual communication	The child uses gestures, smiles and chatter with its parents for more than two communication loops (answer > <reply)	Yes	no
	Joint attention	The child pays attention to parents’ indications, checks and looks again	Yes	no
	Bodily contact	The child shows interest in bodily contact by expression and gesture	Yes	no
	Selectivity	The child clearly prefers the familiar care-personnel	Yes	no
Language	Language understanding	The child reacts to gestures/and some words	Yes	no
Language	Verbal expression	The child expresses itself with facial expressions, gestures, pointing, chatter in syllables	Yes	no

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ISSN: 1471-2431

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