Emotional symptoms in inattentive primary school children: a population-based study

The present study investigates teacher and parent reports of inattention and emotional symptoms in 6,229 primary school children.

The assessment included the Emotional Symptoms subscale and the Impact scale from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the inattention items from the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham IV Questionnaire.

Children defined as inattentive showed a high risk of being defined as high scorers on the Emotional Symptoms subscale. A high score on both the Inattention and Emotional Symptoms subscales was associated with a high impact score. Teachers but not parents reported a higher risk of such co-occurrence of symptoms in girls than in boys.

Inattentive children should be screened for emotional problems by use of the multi-informants method.