Agreement and discordance of parents' and teachers' reports of behavioural problems among Pacific children living in New Zealand.
Research suggests that ratings of child psychopathology by parents and teachers are generally not highly correlated. We examined the agreement and discordance between the child behaviour ratings of parents and teachers of a cohort of 6-year-old Pacific children living in New Zealand, based on scores from the Child Behaviour Checklist and the Teacher Report Form. Mother's reports were obtained for 1019 children, of whom, 602 also had father's reports and 559 had teacher's reports. Rater agreement was low between all pairs of informants. Fathers and teachers had higher agreement than mothers and fathers, the latter in turn had higher agreement than mothers and teachers, and agreement was generally higher for Externalizing problems than Internalizing problems. In terms of discordance, mothers reported more aggressive behaviour than fathers, while fathers reported more Internalizing and Total problems than mothers. Mothers and fathers generally reported more behaviour problems than teachers. The higher agreement found between informants from different settings (fathers and teachers) than between informants from similar settings (mothers and fathers) is in contrast with some of the literature. Further research is needed to investigate how child, informant, and setting characteristics affect ratings of children's behaviour.
Temple University, Center for Asian Health, Department of Public Health, Philadelphia, USA.
Wanzhen
W
Gao
Janis
J
Paterson
Sarnia
S
Carter
Leon
L
Iusitini
Gerhard
G
Sundborn
D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D034462:Dissent and Disputes; D005178:Faculty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005220:Fathers / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D010139:Pacific Islands / Q000208:ethnology; D012737:Sex Factors