Development and Validation of the School Refusal Evaluation Scale for Adolescents

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• School refusal (SR) is a significant clinical issue characterized by emotionally-based absenteeism.
• Existing measures lack psychometric soundness for assessing SR.
• There is a need for a reliable tool to evaluate the multifaceted nature of school refusal.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a multidimensional self-report measure for school refusal in adolescents.
• Introduce the SChool REfusal EvaluatioN Scale (SCREEN) for research and clinical use.

Main Methods:

• Content analysis of 42 interviews to generate initial items.
• Expert review to refine the pilot scale.
• Psychometric validation in a large community sample (n=649) and a clinical sample (n=31) of adolescents aged 10-16.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to establish scale structure.
• Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis for accuracy assessment.

Main Results:

• The final 18-item, four-factor SCREEN scale reliably measures interrelated aspects of school refusal.
• The scale demonstrated good reliability and validity.
• ROC analysis indicated high accuracy: sensitivity = 0.94, specificity = 0.88.

Conclusions:

• The SCREEN is a psychometrically sound and valid measure for assessing school refusal.
• This new scale provides a valuable tool for both research and clinical settings.
• SCREEN aids in the accurate identification and evaluation of school refusal in adolescents.