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Effective Mental Health Screening in Adolescents: Should We Collect Data from Youth, Parents or Both?
Christine Kuhn1, Marcel Aebi2,3,4, Helle Jakobsen5
1Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Postbox 1482, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland. christine.kuhn@puk.zh.ch.
Abstract:
Youth- and parent-rated screening measures derived from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) were compared on their psychometric properties as predictors of caseness in adolescence (mean age 14). Successful screening was judged firstly against the likelihood of having an ICD-10 psychiatric diagnosis and secondly by the ability to discriminate between community (N = 252) and clinical (N = 86) samples (sample status). Both, SDQ and DAWBA measures adequately predicted the presence of an ICD-10 disorder as well as sample status. The hypothesis that there was an informant gradient was confirmed: youth self-reports were less discriminating than parent reports, whereas combined parent and youth reports were more discriminating-a finding replicated across a diversity of measures. When practical constraints only permit screening for caseness using either a parent or an adolescent informant, parents are the better source of information.
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