Reliability and Validity of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present...

This study examined the test-retest reliability, consensual, convergent and divergent validities, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and accuracy of the Portuguese version of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime version (K-SADS-PL). Eighty-nine children/adolescents (65 psychiatric outpatients and 24 healthy controls) were interviewed with K-SADS-PL and completed measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms. The child's parent/caretaker completed the Child Behavior Checklist. Good to excellent values were obtained for test-retest reliability and consensual validity. For the convergent validity, moderate correlations between the K-SADS-PL and the corresponding self-report measures were observed. Divergent validity was acceptable for the K-SADS-PL diagnoses. The lowest values of sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the K-SADS-PL were 88, 88, and 91, respectively. The Portuguese version of K-SADS-PL proved to be a valid and reliable assessment instrument for children and adolescents, and was sensitive, specific and accurate when diagnosing mood, anxiety, adjustment, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders.