Me and My Feelings Questionnaire
Me and My Feelings Questionnaire overview
Creator and Context
Me and My Feelings, originally Me and My School, is a 16 item self report measure of emotional and behavioural difficulties in children and young people.
It was developed by Deighton, Tymms, Vostanis, Belsky, Fonagy, Wolpert and colleagues at the Evidence Based Practice Unit, out of the national evaluation of Targeted Mental Health in Schools in England. It was published in 2013. A licence is required to incorporate it into electronic systems.
Presenting Conditions
The measure produces two subscale scores:
Emotional difficulties (items 1 to 10), covering low mood, worry, loneliness, sleep and fear
Behavioural difficulties (items 11 to 16), covering anger, temper and aggression
Administration
Self completed by the child, on paper or as an interactive PDF or online survey. Each item is rated Never (0), Sometimes (1) or Always (2). One item is reverse scored. It can be completed in under 10 minutes.
Desired Audience
Children and young people from age 8. It was developed and validated in English school populations, and clinical validity was tested in service users aged 8 to 15.
Me and My Feelings is a population and school screening measure. It is short, simple and readable, which is the point: it is designed to be completed at scale by whole year groups rather than administered individually in clinic.
Considerations
It is a screening and population measure, not a diagnostic or severity tool. Overall sensitivity is modest at around 58 percent.
It has only two broad domains, no anxiety and depression separation, and no risk item.
The developers flag that the emotional difficulties threshold may be set too high to capture clinical level emotional problems.
Thresholds derived from the computer survey may not transfer to the paper survey, which matters if you digitise it.
There is no published evidence on responsiveness to change over time.
No translations exist.
How to score the Me and My Feelings Questionnaire
Conducting the assessment
The child rates 16 items as Never, Sometimes or Always. Item 15 is reverse scored.
Interpretation
Emotional difficulties scores range from 0 to 20 and behavioural difficulties from 0 to 12. There are no T scores and no age or gender norms.
Clinical cut offs (Deighton et al., 2013):
Emotional difficulties: 10 to 11 is borderline, 12 or above is clinically significant
Behavioural difficulties: 6 is borderline, 7 or above is clinically significant
In the school survey banding used by CORC, emotional difficulties of 10 or above and behavioural difficulties of 6 or above are classed as elevated.
Clinical Considerations
Use it to find children who need a closer look, then assess properly. It will not tell you what is wrong.
Be aware that children with behavioural difficulties alone tend to under report, so a low score does not rule out a problem.
Keep the administration mode consistent, since paper and digital completion produce different response patterns.
Me and My Feelings Questionnaire use cases
Whole school and population level mental health screening
Identifying children who may need further assessment
Programme evaluation in school based mental health services
Category
Children & Young People
Research Summary
Deighton, J., Tymms, P., Vostanis, P., Belsky, J., Fonagy, P., Brown, A., Martin, A., Patalay, P., & Wolpert, M. (2013). The development of a school based measure of child mental health. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 31(3), 247 to 257.
Patalay, P., Deighton, J., Fonagy, P., Vostanis, P., & Wolpert, M. (2014). Clinical validity of the Me and My School questionnaire: A self report mental health measure for children and adolescents. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 8, 17.
Other Assessment Guides
Young Person's CORE YP-CORE
A guide to the YP-CORE, the 10 item measure of psychological distress in young people aged 11 to 16. Covers scoring, the gender and age specific clinical cut offs and the reliable change index.
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire SDQ Parent
A guide to the parent completed Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Covers the five scales, the four band scoring thresholds, the impact supplement and how to use it with teacher and self report versions.
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire SDQ Teacher
A guide to the teacher completed Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Covers the five scales, teacher specific four band thresholds and why teacher bands differ from parent bands.
Note on Assessment licensing
Some assessments are copyright protected and require a licence or the copyright holder's permission for clinical, commercial or digital use. Where that applies, obtaining and maintaining that permission is the responsibility of the practice or organisation using the assessment. Tacklit provides the digital administration, scoring and reporting. We do not grant, transfer or supply rights to the underlying instrument.
