Detailed contribution information
| Contribution title | 3506 - Multi-Informant assessment of behavioral problems in early adolescence: results from a study of children from clinical and non-clinical samples |
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| Contribution code | PS03-29 (P) |
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| Form of presentation | Poster |
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| Abstract |
Child behavioral problems are а common concern of parents, teachers and professionals.Particular symptoms vary by the age of the child and include oppositional behavior, conduct problems, aggression, anti-social behavior and etc. Many researches indicate that behavioral problems in early adolescence tend to continue into middle and late adolescence and may predict a higher later risk of compromised outcomes. The social costs include school dropout, unemployment, family breakdown and substance abuse. There is an increasing professional and public interest to investigate the possibility that early intervention or preventive efforts could reduce the severity or even prevent mental disorders in later life. Identifying children who are at risk to develop a behavioral disorder can help to intervene before negative behaviors become entrenched. For accurate assessment of behavioral problems child mental health professionalsuse to rely on data from multiple informants- parents, teachers,adolescents and there are many factors (such as the attitude to the assessment or professionals, competence, ability to judge and etc.) that affect the quality of report and contribute to unique perspective held by each informant. As expected the level of agreement between different informants varies.Multi-informant model of assessment is defined and widely accepted as the most comprehensive. Objectives and methods: The present study explores the capacity of multi-informant assessment to identify the behavioral problems in 10-13 years old children from clinical (n=122) and non-clinical (n=330) sample. Adolescents, parents and teachers from both groups were asked to complete the Strength andDifficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997), ADHD Rating Scale-IV (DuPaul et al., 1998) and Adolescent Subjective Well-being and Relationships Scale (Kalchev, 2011).Clinical sample includes patients of the day-care department of the Clinic of child psychiatry St. Nikolas.We present the levels of agreement across child behavior informants. Discussion and conclusions:Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of multiple informant method application with use of different rating scales during the process of behaviour problem identification.We find that multi-informant ratings have high predictive accuracy in diagnostic process and they show to be very useful for detecting ADHD and emotional and conduct disorders. |