Multiple informant agreement of child, parent, and teacher ratings of child anxiety within community samples.
OBJECTIVE
Extant research concerning the degree of multiple informant (that is, parent, clinician, teacher, and child) agreement for child anxiety ratings generally uses clinical samples, and results have been mixed.


METHODS
Our study used a community sample of public school children (n = 1039) to investigate child (self), parent, and teacher reports of child anxiety across 3 time points (pretreatement, posttreatment, and follow-up) in 3 independent school prevention and intervention trials.


RESULTS
Results showed that parents and teachers had high informant agreement for ratings on anxiety across the 3 time points (r = 0.95 to 0.96, P < 0.001); agreement between parent and child (self) reports and between teacher and child (self) reports consistently showed lower agreement across the 3 time points (r = 0.14 and 0.28, respectively, P < 0.001). Group differences were also significant for sex and grade, whereby females more commonly self-reported higher anxiety and children in grades 3 and 4 self-reported higher anxiety, compared with students in grades 5 to 7.


CONCLUSIONS
Correlations between parent and teacher with child ratings were poor over 3 time points, and significant differences were found for sex and grade. Research is needed to understand reasons for poor concordance between parent, child, and teacher ratings of anxiety for all children.
Associate Professor, Counselling Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Lynn D
LD
Miller
Psychologist, York Region District School Board, Markham, Ontario.
Yvonne J
YJ
Martinez
Student, School Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Ellen
E
Shumka
Student, School Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Heather
H
Baker
D000367:Age Factors; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002648:Child; D003625:Data Collection / Q000592:standards*; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D057566:Self Report; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
anxiety; child; childhood; interrater agreement; multiple informants