The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the Nordic countries

Obel, Carsten; Heiervang, Einar; Rodriguez, Alina; Heyerdahl, Sonja; Smedje, Hans; Sourander, André; Guethmundsson, Olafur O; Clench‐Aas, Jocelyne; Christensen, Else; Heian, Frode; Mathiesen, Kristin S.; Magnússon, Páll; Njarethvík, Urethur; Koskelainen, Merja; Rønning, John A.; Stormark, Kjell Morten; Olsen, Jørn

doi:10.1007/s00787-004-2006-2

Cited by 161 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The prevalence in the present population 11 was in line with Scandinavian findings [22][23][24][25] and fairly low compared to other preschool studies in the US. [6][7][8][9][10] Thus, to increase the generalizability of our results, we will determine screening efficiencies for the most common range of prevalences.…”

supporting

confidence: 90%

“…28,29 The Norwegian version has been validated in several large studies. 22,25 In our sample, Cronbach's alpha for the total difficulties score was 0.77 for the parent SDQ 30 and 0.86 for the teacher SDQ. The correlations between the parent and teacher SDQ ratings were r=0.27, p < .001 for the total difficulties score and r=0.34, p < .001 for the impact score.…”

Section: Recruitment and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…These parents filled out the SDQ P4-16 version. 16,26 SDQ scores of school age children in Scandinavia 22,25 are much lower than in many other countries, i.e. UK and the US.…”

Section: Recruitment and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 78%

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Detecting Psychiatric Disorders in Preschoolers: Screening With the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Sveen

Berg-Nielsen

Lydersen

et al. 2013

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psych

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Objective: To examine screening efficiency for preschool psychopathology by comparing the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire against diagnostic information, and to determine the added value of impact scores and teacher information.Method: Using a two-phase sampling design a population-based sample of 845 4-year-olds was recruited from community health check-ups in Trondheim, Norway; screen score stratified and oversampled for high screening scores. Blinded to screen ratings, DSM-IV diagnoses were assigned using the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment interview, against which the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire scores were compared through Receiver Operating Characteristics analysis.Results: Emotional and behavioral disorders were identified through parent ratings with a specificity of 88.8% (87.0-90.6%) and a sensitivity of 65.1% (51.6-78.6%). The negative predictive value was 97.9% (96.8-98.9%), whereas the positive predictive value was 24.2% (18.0-30.3%) at a prevalence of 5.2%. Parental ratings identified more behavioral disorders (79.3%) than emotional disorders (59.2%). Screening for any disorder was somewhat less efficient; specificity 88.9% (87.0-90.7%), sensitivity 54.2% (41.8-66.6%), negative predictive value 96.4% (95.0-97.8%) and positive predictive value 25.9% (19.6-32.2%) at a prevalence of 6.7%. The AUC value was 0.83 (0.76-0.90) for emotional and behavioral disorders and 0.76 (0.68-0.83) for any disorder. The prediction accuracy was not improved by impact scores or teacher information. Conclusions:The results indicate that preschoolers' emotional and behavioral disorders can be screened with the same efficiency as in older children and adults. Other disorders were identified to a lesser extent. Further research should explore the potential of preschool screening to improve early detection and subsequent intervention.

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supporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Recruitment and Participantsmentioning

confidence: 71%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Detecting Psychiatric Disorders in Preschoolers: Screening With the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Sveen

Berg-Nielsen

Lydersen

et al. 2013

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psych

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“…sdqinfo.com). The instrument has been studied in both community and clinical samples in different countries [19,28,31,35,36,42].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Screening for psychopathology in child welfare: the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) compared with the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA)

Janssens

Deboutte

2009

Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry

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Whilst children in child welfare suffer more psychopathology than their community peers, only a small percentage of them actually receive mental health care. Previous literature suggested that all children entering child welfare should be screened. This study evaluated whether the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) could be used for this purpose. The extended version of the SDQ and the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) questionnaire were administered to parents and caregivers of 292 children in child welfare. Children older than 11 years also completed the SDQ self-report and the Youth Self Report (YSR). Furthermore, the child’s history of service use was recorded and informants were asked if the actual care was sufficient. Inter-informant correlations for the scores from the SDQ and ASEBA were high and comparable or favoured the use of the SDQ (for parents and caregivers). Internal consistency was satisfactory to good. For all informants, high correlations were found between SDQ and ASEBA. Despite high scores on the SDQ, only 29% of the children had received mental health care. Service use was only correlated with the parent SDQ and the CBCL and TRF. Additional help, as requested by 21% of the parents and 37% of the caregivers, correlated moderately with the SDQ and ASEBA scores. Compared to the total difficulties score, the impact supplement is a better predictor of service use and the informant’s request for additional help. This study illustrates that the Dutch version of the SDQ, similar to the English and German versions, has equal validity as the Dutch ASEBA for screening children. Caution is warranted when the SDQ is the only source of information for referrals to specialized care

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“…The SDQs have been used in a large number of studies during the last ten years, including the 1999 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey [19], the US National Health Interview Survey [20], and in some large Norwegian epidemiological studies [21]. Davies et al [3] investigated a non-selective sample of children with epilepsy from The British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental health problems in children and adolescents referred to a national epilepsy center

Hanssen‐Bauer

Heyerdahl

Eriksson³

2007

Epilepsy & Behavior

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This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of psychiatric morbidity in children and adolescents referred to a tertiary national epilepsy center (inpatient unit) and the extent of the unmet need for psychiatric services in this group. Participants were 74 children and adolescents aged 9-15 years referred from February 2001 to October 2002 (67% response rate). The multi-informant (parent, teacher, self-report) Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQ) were answered before or at admission. Patients with severe mental retardation or pervasive developmental disorder were excluded. We found a high proportion (77%) with a possible or probable psychiatric disorder. The parents, teachers, and the adolescents themselves had higher mean SDQ scores than a British community sample on total difficulties, emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity-inattention, peer problems, and impairment, except self-reported conduct problems. Nearly 80% of the children who probably had a psychiatric disorder had no contact with the psychiatric service.

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The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the Nordic countries

Abstract: The descriptive statistics suggest that the distributions of SDQ scores are very similar across the Nordic countries. Further collaborative efforts in establishing norms and evaluating the validity of the SDQ as a screening instrument are encouraged.

Cited by 161 publications

References 22 publications

Detecting Psychiatric Disorders in Preschoolers: Screening With the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Detecting Psychiatric Disorders in Preschoolers: Screening With the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Screening for psychopathology in child welfare: the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) compared with the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA)

Mental health problems in children and adolescents referred to a national epilepsy center

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