title: The relations among measurements of informant discrepancies within a multisite trial of treatments for childhood social phobia.
abstract: Discrepancies between informants' reports of children's behavior are robustly observed in clinical child research and have important implications for interpreting the outcomes of controlled treatment trials. However, little is known about the basic psychometric properties of these discrepancies. This study examined the relation between parent-child reporting discrepancies on measures of child social phobia symptoms, administered before and after treatment for social phobia. Participants included a clinic sample of 81 children (7-16 years old [M = 11.75, SD = 2.57]; 39 girls, 42 boys) and their parents receiving treatment as part of a multisite controlled trial. Pretreatment parent-child reporting discrepancies predicted parent-child discrepancies at posttreatment, and these relations were not better accounted for by the severity of the child's pretreatment primary diagnosis. Further, treatment responder status moderated this relation: Significant relations were identified for treatment non-responders and not for treatment responders. Overall, findings suggest that informant discrepancies can be reliably employed to measure individual differences over the course of controlled treatment trials. These data provide additional empirical support for recent work suggesting that informant discrepancies can meaningfully inform understanding of treatment response as well as variability in treatment outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Maryland at College Park, Biology/Psychology Building, Room 3123H, College Park, MD 20742, USA. adelosreyes@psyc.umd.edu
authors.forename: Andres
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: De Los Reyes
authors.forename: Candice A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Alfano
authors.forename: Deborah C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Beidel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005473:Fluoxetine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D015588:Observer Variation; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D012044:Regression Analysis; D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012931:Social Environment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000628:therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
chemical_list: D005473:Fluoxetine; D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors