Multiple informant agreement and the anxiety disorders interview schedule for parents and children.
OBJECTIVE
To examine concordance of child, parent, and consensus agreement on the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule, Child and Parent versions (ADIS-C/P), for an outpatient sample of children and adolescents and to explore moderators of those relations. Child characteristics (age, gender, social desirability), a family environment variable (conflict), and type of diagnoses (internalizing, externalizing) were systematically examined.


METHODS
These relations were examined in 165 children and adolescents referred to a psychological clinic by family practitioners, pediatricians, schools, and mental health professionals. Participants were individually administered the ADIS-C or ADIS-P by separate clinicians, and consensus diagnoses were determined in a clinical conference. Agreements between child-parent, child-consensus, and parent-consensus were determined.


RESULTS
Poor levels of agreement were found among our informants, especially between child and parent and to some extent between child and consensus. Agreement was higher between parent and consensus, suggesting that our clinicians tended to favor parent input over child input. Although the effects were complex, characteristics of the child, family, and type of diagnosis moderated or qualified these findings.


CONCLUSIONS
Although discrepancies exist among our informants, our overall findings suggest important information is obtained from each informant and, when combined with certain modifying characteristics, may lead to diagnostic and treatment decisions.
Grills
Amie E
AE
Child Study Center, Department of Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg 24061, USA. agrills@vt.edu
Ollendick
Thomas H
TH
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002648:Child; D032921:Consensus; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D012928:Social Desirability; D014768:Virginia