title: Detecting psychopathology in young adults: the Young Adult Self Report, the General Health Questionnaire and the Symptom Checklist as screening instruments.
abstract: This study compares the screening capacity of an age-adjusted child-oriented questionnaire, the Young Adult Self Report (YASR) with two adult-oriented questionnaires, the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) and Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) in a sample of young adults (18-25 years). The YASR performed just as well as the SCL-90 and both performed better than the GHQ-28. The relatively poor performance of the GHQ-28 compared with the YASR and SCL-90 could not be attributed to instrument characteristics or to the use of referral status as indicator of psychopathology. In assessing psychopathology in young adults an age-adjusted child-oriented instrument might be a good alternative to the existing adult-oriented instruments, especially when one takes into account the problem of data comparability over time in longitudinal studies in which children are followed into adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Psychiatry, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wiznitzer
authors.forename: F C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Verhulst
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: van den Brink
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koeter
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van der Ende
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Giel
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Koot
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003155:Community Mental Health Centers; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D008603:Mental Health; D010045:Outpatients / Q000523:psychology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012107:Research Design; D012650:Self Disclosure; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires