Self-reported competence and emotional and behavioral problems in a sample of Finnish adolescents

The Youth Self-Report (YSR) was completed by 586 15- to 16-year-old Finnish adolescents. The internal consistency of the YSR problem scales ranged from 0.61 to 0.90. Girls reported significantly more internalizing, withdrawn, somatic, anxious-depressive thought and attention problems. The adolescent was defined as having maladjustment if he she had used mental health services or had more severe problems than the peer group according to parent or self-report (11% of the sample). There were significant differences at the 0.001 level on all YSR scales between maladjustment and non-maladjustment groups. In logistic regression analysis anxious-depressive and delinquency scales had the strongest association with maladjustment. The results are compared with results from previous population-based studies using the YSR in Nordic countries.