Do children aged 9 through 11 years understand the DISC Version 2.25 questions?

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Psychometric Evaluation
• Clinical Assessment Tools

Background:

• The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Version 2.25 (DISC-2.25) is a widely used tool for assessing child psychiatric disorders.
• Ensuring the comprehensibility of interview questions is crucial for accurate diagnostic assessments in pediatric populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the understanding of DISC-2.25 questions by children aged 9 to 11 years.
• To identify specific question types or components that pose challenges for this age group.

Main Methods:

• Cognitive appraisal of 280 DISC-2.25 questions by 240 children across four public schools.
• Analysis of understanding rates for questions overall, time concepts (duration, period, frequency), and question length.
• Statistical analysis using nonparametric tests to compare understanding across different question parameters.

Main Results:

• Children aged 9-11 years understood 38-42% of questions overall and 24-30% of time concepts.
• Understanding of questions as a whole was significantly higher than understanding of time concepts.
• Shorter questions and those with fewer time components were better understood; durations were clearer than periods/frequencies.

Conclusions:

• The DISC-2.25 requires further revision to improve question clarity for children aged 9-11.
• Current versions may not be optimally suited for direct administration to younger children without modifications.
• Enhancing question comprehension is essential for the valid use of the DISC in pediatric research and clinical practice.