Parent ratings of school behaviour in children at risk of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether parents are accurate informants of child hyperactivity symptoms and impairment at school.


METHODS
Parents of a community sample of 93 children with pervasive hyperactivity completed rating scales about their child's behaviour at home and school. These were compared with teacher ratings.


RESULTS
Parent ratings about school correlate more closely with parent (home) than teacher ratings. Such ratings systematically under-estimate teacher ratings and are influenced by the child's behaviour at both home and school as well as parental mental health. However, a parental report of impairment for the child at school is likely to be accurate.


CONCLUSIONS
There are limitations in relying on parental accounts of school behaviour if teacher ratings are unavailable. As such ratings may under-identify children with ADHD and discrepancies between parent and teacher ratings may reflect actual differences in behaviour, this suggests that ratings are required from both sets of informants.
Sayal
K
K
Department of Child Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Denmark Hill, London, UK. k.sayal@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Taylor
E
E
D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010290:Parents; D012574:Schools; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires