Identifying Bullied Youth: Re-engineering the Child-Adolescent Bullying Scale into a Brief Screen.

Abstract

While youth bullying is a critical public health problem, standardized exposure screening is not routinely practiced. The Child-Adolescent Bullying Scale, (CABS), a psychometrically robust 22-item tool, was designed and evaluated for this purpose using classical test theory. The goals of the present study were to examine and optimize the measurement properties of the CABS using a Rasch psychometric analysis to develop a brief screening tool appropriate for clinical use. A methodologic design and the Rasch rating scale model were employed. Three hundred and fifty-two youths from two clinical sites participated. Rasch-based analyses included evaluation of response category functioning, measurement precision, dimensionality, targeting, differential item functioning and guidance in item reduction. After iterative revisions, the resulting screening instrument consists of 9 items. Cut-scores and interpretive guidance are provided to aid clinical identification of bullying-related risk. Findings suggest the CABS-9 holds promise as a useful screening tool for identifying bullying exposure.