title: Screening for Persistent Psychopathology in 4-Year-Old Children.
abstract: To inform primary care screening and preventive intervention efforts, the authors examined the screening efficiency of the parent version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQP4-16) for persistent disorders relative to transient disorders and its capacity to distinguish between the two.
  
  
  
  Persistence and transience in preschool-onset psychiatric disorders were identified by using data from a large population-based cohort study in Norwegian children initially assessed at age 4 and followed up at age 6 (n = 1038). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, diagnoses at both time points were assigned by using the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment Interview, against which the SDQP4-16 was compared through receiver operating characteristics analysis.
  
  
  
  The screening efficiency for persistent disorders exceeded that for transient disorders with a specificity of 86.1%, a sensitivity of 79.3%, and an area under the curve value of 0.85. The SDQP4-16 was able to discriminate persistent disorders from transient disorders at an area under the curve value of 0.71. At the selected cutoff of 10, the negative predictive value was 99.6%, whereas the positive predictive value was 9.5%, partly due to the low prevalence (1.8%) of persistent disorders.
  
  
  
  The SDQP4-16 is a sensitive tool for detecting persistent psychiatric disorders in young children. However, a large proportion of positive screens are nonpersistent cases, as indicated by the high false-positive rate. Thus, the clinical utility of the SDQP4-16 in primary care screening for persistent disorders is uncertain, particularly in samples in which the rate of psychiatric disorders is low.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychology and trude.hamre.sveen@svt.ntnu.no.|Social Science and.
authors.forename: Trude
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hamre Sveen
authors.affiliation: Regional Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Eastern and Southern Norway (RBUP), Oslo, Norway; and.
authors.forename: Turid Suzanne
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Berg-Nielsen
authors.affiliation: Regional Center for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
authors.forename: Stian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lydersen
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychology and.|Social Science and.|Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic, St Olavs Hospital, Trondheim, Norway.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wichstrøm
mesh_terms: D019540:Area Under Curve; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D065886:Neurodevelopmental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D009664:Norway; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011599:Psychopathology / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires