اندازه گیری خلق و خوی در نوجوانان مبتلا به معلولیت ذهنی

To date, there has been limited research into mood responses among adolescents with intellectual disability. One reason for this is the absence of a reliable and valid measure for the assessment of mood among this population. The present study evaluated such a measure among a sample of 135 adolescents with mild intellectual disability. Results supported the factorial validity of a 12-item derivative of the Profile of Mood States, referred to as the Intellectual Disability Mood Scale (IDMS). Convergent and divergent validity was also supported. Overall, the IDMS showed encouraging psychometric characteristics as a measure of mood among adolescents with intellectual disability. It is hoped that the results of this study will stimulate further research to expand our knowledge of mood responses among this population.

Little is known about the affective experience of individuals with intellectual disability. One reason for the paucity of research in this area is the absence of standardised assessment tools for quantifying mood or emotional responses among this population. Mood, which has been defined by Lane and Terry (2000) as “a set of feelings, ephemeral in nature, varying in intensity and duration, and usually involving more than one emotion” (p. 17) is seen as a cumulative concept, whereby emotional responses to life events coalesce to form a state of mind that is thought to remain in place until modified by other life events. Moods are typically defined as relatively low-intensity, diffuse, and enduring affective states that have no obvious antecedent cause and are less subject to conscious monitoring or control than emotions which, in contrast, are usually understood as distinct, intense, short-lived, and highly conscious feeling states that have an obvious cause (see Forgas, 2000; Smith & Kirby, 2000). Mood states tend to influence thought processes, which subsequently affect behaviour across a range of situations, whereas emotions tend to promote specific responses to situations requiring immediate action. Generally, moods appear to influence the way people perceive, interpret, plan and execute strategic interpersonal behaviours and thereby influence the kind of social information people attend to and the type of processing strategies they adopt (see Forgas, 2001; Sedikides & Green, 2001).