Despite increasing awareness of high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in people with intellectual disability (ID), diagnostic tools are few and scarcely used in daily practice. SPAID-G (psychiatric instrument for the intellectually disabled adult-general version) is the first Italian for carrying out psychiatric diagnostic orientations in adults with ID. It was designed to be easy and quick instrument for daily clinical practice.

The present study was aimed at evaluating psychometric and psychodiagnostic characteristics of the SPAID-G and at supplying new data on the prevalence rate of psychiatric disorders in a multicentric Italian sample of people with ID living in different settings.

The SPAID-G was consecutively administered to more than 800 persons with ID attending residential, rehabilitative or clinical services across Italy. A part of the sample was also assessed for psychopathology through the use of DASH-II, PDD-MRS and clinically diagnosed in accordance to DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5 criteria.

SPAID internal consistency, inter-rater reliability and concordance with DASH-II and PDD-MRS resulted to be good. Around 40% of the sample was assessed to have a cluster of psychopathological symptoms that could be consistent with a psychiatric diagnosis. Autism, impulse control disorder and personality disorder resulted to be the most frequent over threshold scores.

The SPAID-G seems to be a valid and cost-effective screening tool for the psychiatric assessment within the Italian population with ID.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.