title: Effective Mental Health Screening in Adolescents: Should We Collect Data from Youth, Parents or Both?
abstract: Youth- and parent-rated screening measures derived from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) were compared on their psychometric properties as predictors of caseness in adolescence (mean age 14). Successful screening was judged firstly against the likelihood of having an ICD-10 psychiatric diagnosis and secondly by the ability to discriminate between community (N = 252) and clinical (N = 86) samples (sample status). Both, SDQ and DAWBA measures adequately predicted the presence of an ICD-10 disorder as well as sample status. The hypothesis that there was an informant gradient was confirmed: youth self-reports were less discriminating than parent reports, whereas combined parent and youth reports were more discriminating-a finding replicated across a diversity of measures. When practical constraints only permit screening for caseness using either a parent or an adolescent informant, parents are the better source of information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Postbox 1482, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland. christine.kuhn@puk.zh.ch.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9550-8696
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kuhn
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Postbox 1482, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland.|Child and Youth Forensic Psychiatry, Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland.|Clinical Psychology for Children/Adolescents and Couples/Families, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aebi
authors.affiliation: Research Unit of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatric Hospital, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark.
authors.forename: Helle
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jakobsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Banaschewski
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Luise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Poustka
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Yvonne
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Grimmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, King's College London Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, London, UK.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goodman
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, Postbox 1482, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland.|Research Unit of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatric Hospital, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark.|Clinical Psychology and Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Hans-Christoph
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Steinhausen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008605:Mental Health Services; D010290:Parents; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Adolescent psychopathology; DAWBA; Multi-informants; SDQ; Screening