Self- and parent assessment of mental health problems yield a limited degree of cross-informant agreement in adolescent populations. Working with data from 122 refugee children, adolescents and young adults from the Middle East, the aims of this study were to analyse levels of agreement and disagreement between self-and parent ratings of externalizing and internalizing behaviour and to identify predictors for the differences between the two sets of ratings. Parents and children were interviewed separately using structured questionnaires. Mental health was assessed using the Achenbach System of Empirically-based Assessment. Self- and parent-rated scale scores correlated moderately. The mean score differences between self- and parent-rated internalizing and externalizing behaviour were 2.0 and 2.7, p < 0.005, respectively. A larger mean difference was found among boys concerning externalizing behaviour and among girls concerning internalizing behaviour. Individual (age, and sex) family (father's health situation) and ethnic background predicted this difference. This could indicate that parent ratings and children's self-ratings are two, qualitatively different constructs and not just a result of expected inter-observer disagreement. When assessing young refugees for possible treatment, this difference needs to be understood and taken into consideration.
Achenbach,T.M. (1991). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4—18 and 1991 Profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.
2.
Achenbach, T.M. (1997). Manual for the Young Adult Self-report and Young Adult Behaviour Checklist. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.
3.
Achenbach, T.M. (1999). Manual for the Youth Self-report and 1991 Profile . Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.
4.
Achenbach, T.M., McConaughy, S.H., & Howell, C.T. (1987). Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: Implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity. Psychological Bulletin,101, 213—232.
5.
Altman, D.G. (1991). Practical statistics for medical research. London: Chapman & Hall.
6.
Becker, A., Hagenberg, N., Roessner, V., Woerner, W., & Rothenberger, A. (2004). Evaluation of the self-reported SDQ in a clinical setting: Do self-reports tell us more than ratings by adult informants?European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 13, 17—24.
7.
Begovac, I., Rudan, V., Skocic, M., Filipovic, O., & Szirovicza, L. (2004). Comparison of self-reported and parent-reported emotional and behavioral problems in adolescents from Croatia. Collegium Antropologicum, 28, 393—401.
8.
Berg-Nielsen, T.S., Vika, A., & Dahl, A.A. (2003). When adolescents disagree with their mothers: CBCL-YSR discrepancies related to maternal depression and adolescent self-esteem . Child: Care, Health & Development, 29, 207—213.
9.
Berger, L.E., Jodl, K.M., Allen, J.P., McElhaney, K.B., & Kuperminc, G.P. (2005). When adolescents disagree with others about their symptoms: Differences in attachment organization as an explanation of discrepancies between adolescent, parent, and peer reports of behaviour problems. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 509—528.
10.
Bergeron, L., Valla, J.P., & Breton, J.J. (1992). Pilot study for the Quebec child mental health survey: Part II. Correlates of DSM-III-R criteria among six to 14 year olds . Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 37, 381—386.
11.
Bergeron, L., Valla, J.P., Breton, J.J., Gaudet, N., Berthiaume, C., Lambert, J., et al. (2000). Correlates of mental disorders in the Quebec general population of 6 to 14-year olds. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 28, 47—62.
12.
Bilenberg, N. (1999). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and related material: Standardization and validation in Danish population based and clinically based samples. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 100, 1—52.
13.
Bilenberg, N. (2000). Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), Danish Manual . Odense: Odense University Hospital .
14.
Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7, 14—25.
15.
Clarke, G.N., Lewinsohn, P.M., Hops, H., & Seeley, J.R. (1992). A self- and parent-report measure of adolescent depression: The child behaviour checklist depression scale (CBCL-D). Behavioral Assessment, 14, 443—463.
16.
Goodman, R., Meltzer, H., & Bailey, V. (1998). The strengths and difficulties questionnaire: A pilot study on the validity of the self-report version. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 7, 125—130.
17.
Huberty, T.J., Austin, J.K., Harezlak, J., Dunn, D.W., & Ambrosius, W.T. (2000). Informant agreement in behavior ratings for children with epilepsy. Epilepsy &Behavior, 1, 427—435.
18.
Jensen, P.S., Rubio-Stipec, M., Canino, G., Bird, H.R., Dulcan, M.K., Schwab-Stone, M.E., et al. (1999). Parent and child contributions to diagnosis of mental disorder: Are both informants always necessary? Child and AdolescentPsychiatry, 38, 1569—1579.
19.
Kassam-Adams, N., Garcia-Espana, F.J., Miller, V.A., & Winston, F. (2006). Parent—child agreement regarding children's acute stress: The role of parent acute stress reactions. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 45, 1485—1493.
20.
Lahey, B.B., Flagg, E.W., Bird, H., Schwab-Stone, M., Canino, G., Dulcan, M.K., et al. (1996). The NIMH Methods for the Epidemilogy of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study: Background and methodology . Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , 35, 855—864.
21.
Lau, A.S., Garland, A.F., Yeh, M., McCabe, K.M., Wood, P.A., & Hough, R.L. (2004). Race/ethnicity and inter-informant agreement in assessing adolescent psychopathology. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 12, 145—156.
22.
Martin, J.L., Ford, C.B., Dyer-Friedman, J.,Tang, J., & Huffman, L.C. (2004). Patterns of agreement between parent and child ratings of emotional and behavioral problems in an outpatient clinical setting: When children endorse more problems. Developmental and Behavioural Pediatrics, 25, 150—155.
23.
Montgomery, E. (1998). Refugee children from the Middle East. Scandinavian Journal of Social Medicine, S54, 1—152.
24.
Pedersen, M.M. (2004). Yearbook on foreigners in Denmark 2004: Status and development. Copenhagen: Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs. [Originally in Danish]
25.
Prieur, A. (1999). The contradictions of inheritance: A generational perspective on immigration research. Social Kritik, 11, 4—19. [Originally in Danish]
26.
Raudenbush, S.W., & Bryk, A.S. (2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
27.
Rey, J.M., Schrader, E., & Morris-Yates, A. (1992). Parent—child agreement on children's behaviours reported by the child behaviour checklist (CBCL) . Journal of Adolescence, 15, 219—230.
28.
Rousseau, C., & Drapeau, A. (1998). Parent—child agreement on refugee children's psychiatric symptoms: A transcultural perspective. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37, 629—636.
29.
Sawyer, M.G., Baghurst, P., & Clark, J. (1992). Differences between reports from children, parents and teachers: Implications for epidemiological studies. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 652—660.
30.
Sawyer, M.G., Baghurst, P., & Mathias, J. (1992). Differences between informants' reports describing emotional and behavioural problems in community and clinic-referred children: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry , 33, 441—449.
31.
Seiffge-Krenke, I., & Kollmar, F. (1998). Discrepancies between mothers' and fathers' perceptions of sons' and daughters' problem behaviour: A longitudinal analysis of parent—adolescent agreement on internalizing and externalizing problem behaviour. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 687—697.
32.
Stanger, C., & Lewis, M. (1993). Agrement among parents, teachers, and children on internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 22, 107—115.
33.
Steinhausen, H.C., & Metzke, C.W. (1998). Youth self-report of behavioral and emotional problems in a Swiss epidemiological study. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 27, 429—441.
34.
Stevens, G.W., Pels, T., Bengi-Arslan, L., Verhulst, F.C., Vollebergh, W.A., & Crijnen, A.A. (2003). Parent, teacher and self-reported problem behavior in The Netherlands: Comparing Moroccan immigrant with Dutch and with Turkish immigrant children and adolescents. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 38, 576—585.
35.
Valla, J.P., Bergeron, L., Breton, J.J., Gaudet, N., & Berthiaume, C. (1993). Informants, correlates and child disorders in a clinical population. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 38, 406—411.
36.
van den Ende, J., & Verhulst, F.C. (2005). Informant, gender and age differences in ratings of adolescent problem behaviour. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14, 117—126.
37.
Verhulst, F.C., & van den Ende, J. (1991). Assessment of child psychopathology: Relationships between different methods, different informants and clinical judgment of severity. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 84, 155—159.
38.
Verhulst, F.C., & van den Ende, J. (1992). Agreement between parents' reports and adolescents' self-reports of problem behaviour. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 1011—1023.
39.
Wahlsten, V.S., Ahmad, A., & van Knorring, A.-L. (2002). Do Kurdistanian and Swedish parents and children differ in their rating of competence and behavioural problems? NordicJournal of Psychiatry, 56, 279—283.
40.
Youngstrom, E.A., Findling, R.L., & Calabrese, J.R. (2003). Who are the comorbid adolescents? Agreement between psychiatric diagnosis, youth, parent, and teacher report . Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 31, 231—245.
