Three informants' reports of child behavior: parents, teachers, and foster parents.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether disagreements in reporting child behavior problems between biological parents and foster parents and teachers are related to depressive symptoms in the biological parent.


METHODS
Child Behavior Checklists and Teacher's Report Forms were completed by parents, foster parents, and teachers on 95 foster children between ages 5 and 16 during 1990-1991. Depressive symptoms in biological parents were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the relation between parental depressive symptoms and the discrepancies between their reports and those of two other informants.


RESULTS
In both the internalizing and externalizing behavior models, a significant relation was found between parents' depressive symptoms and their discrepancies in reporting, but not with child behavior. This relation was stronger for internalizing than externalizing models.


CONCLUSIONS
Using foster parents (and teachers) as informants offered a unique opportunity to view the reports of biological parents in comparison to two independent reports. Foster parents have a similar observational situation as biological parents but bring a less emotionally invested perspective to behavior observation, even when they are relatives. It is likely that depressive symptoms in parents distort their reports of their children's behavior. Clinicians would be wise to supplement parental with other informant reports.
Randazzo
Katherine Van Dusen
KV
Child and Adolescent Services Research Group and Fielding Graduate Institute, 1375 Surfwood Lane, San Diego, CA 92154, USA. kvrand@cox.net
Landsverk
John
J
Ganger
William
W
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D005581:Foster Home Care; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010290:Parents; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires