A symptom self-report measure for preschool children

The Preschool Symptom Self-Report (PRESS) is a pictorial instrument designed to facilitate the self-report of depressive symptoms by preschool children. It was tested with a sample of 84 Head Start children and their parents and teachers. A parent-teacher version of the instrument correlated with other measures designed for adult rating of children's depression about as well as those measures correlate with one another. It showed high reliability upon retesting by a different examiner within 24 hours. The instrument also showed high internal consistency, which implies that the children responded to items based upon their meaning rather than upon irrelevant characteristics. The retest reliability of the instrument did not depend upon the child's mental age. The children's self-reports showed no relation to adults' ratings of the children's symptoms; this result is consistent with some findings with older children.