Evaluating behavioral and emotional problems with the Child Behavior Checklist and Youth Self-Report scales: cross-informant and longitudinal associations.

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the inter-rater agreement between parents' reports and adolescents' self-reports of behavioral and emotional problems using cross-informant scales both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. MATERIAL AND METHODS Subjects were participants in a longitudinal study of 695 school-aged children from the general population, aged 7-10 during the first assessment. They were evaluated with the Child Behavior Checklist (completed by parents) and later, from 11 year-old, with the Youth Self-Report. The scoring format and factor structure of the two assessment instruments are similar; cross-informant syndromes constructed from the two instruments are based on parents' and self-report information. Measures included anxiety/depression, withdrawal, somatic complaints, aggression, delinquency and attention problems. RESULTS Findings indicate that there is longitudinal stability in parents' ratings of children's behavioral problems. Our findings also confirm that adolescents, especially as they grow older, are indispensable informants about their problem behavior, because many of the problems they experience remain unnoticed by their parents. Adolescents reported higher levels of anxiety/depression, withdrawal, somatic complaints, aggression and delinquency, but lower levels of attention problems than their parents. CONCLUSIONS Our results reflect the typical level of parent-child agreement in reports of problem behaviors as it occurs in other samples. Other investigators could use these data as a background, for testing of longitudinal associations and parent-child agreements in different samples.