title: Child Stress Disorders Checklist: a measure of ASD and PTSD in children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the psychometric properties of the Child Stress Disorders Checklist (CSDC), a 36-item observer-report instrument that measures acute stress and posttraumatic symptoms in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  The CSDC was administered to parents of 43 children with acute burns and 41 children who had experienced a traffic crash. This instrument was also administered to the burned children's primary nurse to estimate interrater reliability. The CSDC was completed again by parents of burned children, 2 days and 3 months later. Convergent validity was determined by correlating scores on the CSDC with scores on instruments of known validity for assessing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children. Concurrent validity was determined through an examination of the relationship between CSDC scores and an index of trauma severity (percentage of body surface area burned). Discriminant validity was assessed by administering the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL): it was hypothesized that PTSD symptoms would be more closely related to the PTSD scale of the CBCL than the Thought Problems scale of the CBCL.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The CSDC has reliable and valid psychometric properties.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The CSDC, an observer-report instrument of ASD and PTSD in children, has important utility in clinical and research settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Boston Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine, USA. glenn.saxe@bmc.org
authors.forename: Glenn
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Saxe
authors.forename: Neharika
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chawla
authors.forename: Frederick
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stoddard
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kassam-Adams
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Courtney
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lopez
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sheridan
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Lynda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: King
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D040701:Stress Disorders, Traumatic, Acute / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires