Measurement Equivalence of an ADHD Screening Tool Across Diverse Racial and Ethnic Children

Despite prior work evidencing racial and ethnic differences in parent-reported ratings of ADHD symptoms, there is limited work suggesting that these reflect true differences rather than a product of nonequivalent measurement properties in screening tools. The current study aimed to further explore this using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Hyperactivity-Inattention Subscale (SDQ-HI; Goodman, 1997) by first analyzing its factor structure and subsequently assessing for measurement invariance and latent mean differences. Participants were parents of 6,673 children aged 4-17 years (M_age = 11.10 years, SD = 4.06) from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey. The sample was inclusive of White, Hispanic/Latinx, Black, and Asian children. A series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) was used to establish the factor structure of the parent-reported version of the SDQ-HI and determine configural invariance across racial and ethnic groups. The alignment optimization approach was then employed to examine measurement invariance and compare latent means between groups. Initial results using data from the full sample indicated that a two-factor structure fit best. Additionally, the SDQ-HI was deemed invariant across races and ethnicities, except for threshold differences in restless and overactive behaviors between Hispanic/Latinx and White children. Asian children, on average, were rated as having lower levels of inattention compared to all other racial and ethnic groups. Findings from this study supported the use of the SDQ-HI as a screening tool across racial and ethnic groups and provided important implications for considering cultural influences toward parents' approaches to rating ADHD behaviors.