Prognostic value of parent-adolescent disagreement in a referred sample.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether parent-adolescent disagreement regarding reports on adolescents' psychopathology indicates a poor prognosis.


METHODS
A total of 151 11- to 18-year-olds who had been assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Youth Self-Report (YSR) at referral to an outpatient psychiatry clinic were followed up. At follow-up, 4.3 years later, signs of poor outcome were assessed.


RESULTS
Discrepancies between CBCL and YSR scores predicted future disciplinary problems at school, police/judicial contacts, and drug use.


CONCLUSIONS
To determine the prognosis of psychopathology in adolescents who are referred to mental health services, discrepancies between parents and adolescents may be useful. Given the relatively large number of statistical comparisons (n = 16) that was needed to obtain these results, future studies are needed to test if the results are robust across different settings.
Ferdinand
Robert F
RF
Dep. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam/ Sophia Children's Hospital, Dr. Molewaterplein 60, 3015 GJ Rotterdam, The Netherlands. r.f.ferdinand@erasmusmc.nl
van der Ende
Jan
J
Verhulst
Frank C
FC
D000293:Adolescent; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000453:epidemiology; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D015588:Observer Variation; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents; D011379:Prognosis; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012918:Social Alienation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires