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Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) serves as the primary classification system for mental health disorders, providing standardized diagnostic criteria for clinicians and researchers. First published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1952, the DSM has undergone several revisions to reflect evolving psychiatric understanding. The fifth edition, DSM-5, released in 2013, introduced key updates that expanded diagnostic categories and modified diagnostic...

Surveys

Surveys

Often, psychologists develop surveys as a means of gathering data. Surveys are lists of questions to be answered by research participants, and can be delivered as paper-and-pencil questionnaires, administered electronically, or conducted verbally. Generally, the survey itself can be completed in a short time, and the ease of administering a survey makes it easy to collect data from a large number of people.

Theoretical Approaches to Psychological Disorder

Theoretical Approaches to Psychological Disorder

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Panic Disorder

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In cross-sectional research, a researcher compares multiple segments of the population at the same time. If they were interested in people's dietary habits, the researcher might directly compare different groups of people by age. Instead of following a group of people for 20 years to see how their dietary habits changed from decade to decade, the researcher would study a group of 20-year-old individuals and compare them to a group of 30-year-old individuals and a group of 40-year-old...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 28, 2026

Use of a Psychophysiological Script-driven Imagery Experiment to Study Trauma-related Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder

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Cross-national differences in questionnaires do not necessarily reflect comparable differences in disorder

Anna Goodman¹, Einar Heiervang, Bacy Fleitlich-Bilyk

¹Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, UK. anna.goodman@lshtm.ac.uk

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

|October 29, 2011

Summary

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) shows varying accuracy in comparing child mental health across countries. Cross-national differences in SDQ results may not reflect true differences in disorder rates, requiring caution in interpretation.

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Published on: January 17, 2025

Area of Science:

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Cross-Cultural Psychology
Mental Health Epidemiology

Background:

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely used for child mental health screening.
International comparisons of child mental health prevalence are crucial but challenging.
Validating screening tools for cross-cultural use is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

To assess the cross-national validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for comparing child mental health problem prevalence.
To determine if SDQ-derived prevalence estimates are comparable across diverse cultural contexts.

Main Methods:

Utilized data from 29,225 children (aged 5-16) across eight population-based studies in seven countries.
Employed parent, teacher, and youth-completed SDQ data to generate nine 'caseness indicators'.
Validated SDQ findings against structured diagnostic interviews (Development and Well-Being Assessment, DAWBA) conducted by experts.

Main Results:

Child mental disorder prevalence varied significantly across countries, from 2.2% in India to 17.1% in Russia, as per DAWBA.
The nine SDQ caseness indicators explained only 8-56% of the cross-national variation in disorder prevalence.
SDQ indicators were insufficient for reliable prevalence estimates, showing large discrepancies even in populations with similar DAWBA-assessed disorder rates.

Conclusions:

The correlation between SDQ indicators and actual disorder rates differs substantially between populations.
Cross-national variations in SDQ scores do not reliably indicate comparable differences in child mental health disorder rates.
Exercise significant caution when interpreting cross-cultural mental health comparisons, especially those using brief questionnaires like the SDQ.