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Applicability of rutter-B scale on Indian population
1SAVITA MALHOTRA, Department of Psychiatry, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research, Chandigarh- 160 012.
Indian Journal of Psychiatry
|March 17, 2011
Summary
The Rutter-B Scale shows poor accuracy for screening child psychiatric disorders in schools. Its low sensitivity and specificity limit its use for identifying children needing further assessment.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Educational Psychology
- Psychometric Evaluation
Background:
- Screening tools are crucial for early identification of psychiatric disorders in children.
- The Rutter-B Scale is a teacher-completed questionnaire used for this purpose.
- Its effectiveness in diverse school populations requires rigorous validation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the applicability and diagnostic accuracy of the Rutter-B Scale.
- To assess its performance as a screening instrument in a representative sample of school children.
- To determine its concordance with clinical psychiatric assessments.
Main Methods:
- A representative sample of 963 school children aged 4-11 years was studied.
- Teachers completed the Rutter-B Scale for each child.
- Results were compared against established clinical psychiatric assessments.
Main Results:
- At the recommended cut-off score of 9, the Rutter-B Scale demonstrated low sensitivity (51.8%).
- Specificity was found to be very low (34.1%).
- Concordance between the Rutter-B Scale and clinical assessment was only 33.6%.
Conclusions:
- The Rutter-B Scale exhibits significant limitations as a screening instrument in child psychiatry epidemiology.
- Its low sensitivity and specificity suggest a high rate of false negatives and false positives.
- Further research is needed to identify more reliable screening tools for child psychiatric disorders.
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