Comparison of parent adolescent scores on Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Child and adolescent psychiatry has benefited from the application of self-report questionnaires because it is short, less costly and easy to apply. So we select the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and evaluate the agreement between the self-report and parent report form.

Subjects were 1934 Adolescents, 11-18 years old. After obtaining the samples consent, SDQ parent rated form and self-rated form were filled. The collected data were analyzed using the STATA statistical package version 9.

The adolescents obtained higher total difficulty scores than their parents, but it was not significant (P = 0.203). Boys had higher total difficulty scores than girls by parent informant (P = 0.001), but by self-report girls had higher total difficulty scores than boys (P = 0.42). 11-14 years had higher total difficulty scores by parent report than self-report (P = 0.42), but 15-18 years had higher total difficulty scores by self-report than parent report (P = 0.36).

SDQ self-rating from adolescents may contribute better to the diagnostic process in the clinical setting.