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Parent-adolescent agreement on emotional and behavioral problems
A Sourander1, L Helstelä, H Helenius
1Department of Child Psychiatry, Turku University Hospital, Finland. andre.sourander@utu.fi
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
|March 7, 2000
Summary
Adolescents often underreport emotional and behavioral symptoms to parents, particularly girls with internalizing issues. This discrepancy can lead to missed psychiatric assessments for youth needing help.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Developmental Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
Background:
- Parent and adolescent agreement on emotional and behavioral symptoms is crucial for accurate assessment.
- Understanding discrepancies in reporting is vital for identifying at-risk youth.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine parent and adolescent self-report agreement on emotional and behavioral symptoms in 15- to 16-year-old adolescents.
- To identify factors influencing discrepancies in symptom reporting between adolescents and their parents.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 580 adolescents aged 15-16.
- Employed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) for parent reports and the Youth Self-Report (YSR) for adolescent self-reports.
Main Results:
- Adolescents reported significantly more problem behaviors than their parents.
- Adolescent girls reported higher distress levels than boys across most symptom domains.
- Discrepancies between parent and youth reports were larger for internalizing symptoms, especially in girls.
Conclusions:
- A significant number of adolescents requiring psychiatric evaluation may go undiagnosed due to underreporting of symptoms to adults.
- Internalizing problems in adolescent girls are particularly prone to being overlooked by parents and other adults.