A multiple criterion screen for identifying secondary school children with psychiatric disorder: Characteristics and efficiency of screen

Abstract

SYNOPSISA multiple criterion screen was developed as part of a study which was designed to assess different types of intervention for school children with psychiatric disorder. The foremost requirement was that false positives be kept to a minimum, with selected children being unequivocally disturbed. Children were identified for treatment by the following measures: (a) teacher rating on the Rutter B2 Scale, giving a total score and subscores for neurotic and antisocial behaviour; (b) peer ratings on a sociometric measure, yielding isolation and rejection scores; and (c) self ratings on the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory, specifically the neuroticism dimension. A weighting system was developed so that children could be selected on the basis of extreme scores on either teacher or self-rating measures alone, or by a combination of less extreme scores on more than one measure. The results are presented and discussed.

The Frequency of Emotional and Behavioural Disturbance in an EBD School

“…Of course, this could be a reflection of national differences, in which case an overall disorder rate of 86 % would be similar to the prevalence found in community surveys of similar aged children in the UK. Estimates of overall rates of disorder in the community have been 7 % in the relatively rural Isle of Wight (Rutter et al, 1970), rising to 25 % in urban areas, such as the North East of England (Macmillan, Kolvin, & Garside, 1980), and Inner London (Rutter et al, 1975). These rates are still clearly of a different order to the rates found within the EBD school, and confirm that this is a group of children with considerable psychopathology.…”

Screening Measures for Detecting Psychiatric Disorders in Japanese Secondary School Children

“…There exist many epidemiological studies of psychiatric disorders in children in the U.K. (for example, Rutter & Graham, 1966;Rutter, Tizard & Whitmore, 1970;Rutter, Graham, Chadwick & Yule, 1976;Graham & Rutter, 1973;Macmillan, Kolvin, Garside, Nicol & Leitch, 1980), Norway (Vikan, 1985), Uganda (Minde, 1975) and the U.S.A. (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1979), but very few studies have been carried out in Japan. Some studies which used police records for information do exist, but fmdings obtained in this way are very limited (Educational Ministry, 1982).…”

The nature of mother and toddler problems. (ii) Patterns of disturbance and disadvantage

“…In this way, possible dierences in rates among the nine cells could be taken into account in determining overall rates of dierent types of problems, and the possible biasing eect of dierent sampling ratios can be removed from the resulting estimates. The exact procedure followed to determine the prevalence rates is complicated, but it does allow a more accurate estimate than has been obtained in most previous studies where prevalence has been calculated on the basis of the two levels (above and below a cut-o) (18,19,28,30).…”