Comparisons of parent and adolescent perspectives on deviance

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Developmental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Adolescent psychopathology is a significant concern.
• Understanding parent-child agreement in symptom reporting is crucial for accurate diagnosis and treatment.
• Gender differences in the expression and perception of psychopathology are well-documented.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the correspondence between hospitalized adolescents' and their parents' (mothers and fathers) ratings of psychopathology.
• To investigate gender-specific patterns in parent-child agreement on total symptoms, internalizing, and externalizing psychopathology.
• To compare mother-son and father-son correspondence in symptom ratings.

Main Methods:

• A sample of hospitalized adolescents (girls and boys) and their parents completed symptom rating scales.
• Data were analyzed to assess the degree of agreement between adolescent and parent reports.
• Analyses considered the gender of the adolescent and the parent.

Main Results:

• Parents, particularly mothers, reported higher symptom severity than adolescents.
• Adolescent girls reported more severe symptoms than boys.
• Interparent agreement was similar for daughters but higher for mother-son than father-son pairs.
• Boys and their parents did not distinguish between internalizing and externalizing disorders, while girls and parents showed better discrimination.

Conclusions:

• Parental reports, especially maternal, tend to overestimate adolescent symptom severity.
• Gender influences both the reporting of psychopathology and the agreement between adolescents and parents.
• Adolescent gender impacts the ability to differentiate between internalizing and externalizing disorders, a distinction more clearly made by girls and their parents.