Predicting type of psychiatric disorder from Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) scores in child mental health clinics in London and Dhaka

Abstract

A computerised algorithm was developed to predict child psychiatric diagnoses on the basis of the symptom and impact scores derived from Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQs) completed by parents, teachers and young people. The predictive algorithm generates "unlikely", "possible" or "probable" ratings for four broad categories of disorder, namely conduct disorders, emotional disorders, hyperactivity disorders, and any psychiatric disorder. The algorithm was applied to patients attending child mental health clinics in Britain (N = 101) and Bangladesh (N = 89). The level of chance-corrected agreement between SDQ prediction and an independent clinical diagnosis was substantial and highly significant (Kendall's tau b between 0.49 and 0.73; p < 0.001). A "probable" SDQ prediction for any given disorder correctly identified 81-91% of the children who definitely had that clinical diagnosis. There were more false positives than false negatives, i.e. the SDQ categories were over-inclusive. The algorithm appears to be sufficiently accurate and robust to be of practical value in planning the assessment of new referrals to a child mental health service.

When to Use Broader Internalising and Externalising Subscales Instead of the Hypothesised Five Subscales on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): Data from British Parents, Teachers and Children

“…Thus all five subscales appeared to have the potential to play a distinct, useful role when predicting child mental disorders, and this included subscales such as parent-reported peer problems which showed poor construct validity and internal reliability in the MTMM analyses. These findings are consistent with the fact that algorithms based on the five separate subscales have shown good performance in predicting type of disorder in clinics (R. Goodman, Renfrew, et al, 2000) or in the skip-rules of the DAWBA (R. Goodman, Ford, et al, 2000). They also highlight the vital importance of using multiple approaches to examine construct validity, and thereby building up a more complete and more nuanced picture of a measure's performance.…”

“…The SDQ total difficulties score, which is the sum of the emotional, peer, behavioral and hyperactivity subscales, has been found to be a psychometrically sound measure of overall child mental health problems in studies from around the world (Achenbach, et al, 2008;A. Goodman & Goodman, 2009; R. Goodman, 1997Goodman, , 1999R. Goodman, Renfrew, & Mullick, 2000;R.…”

Pathways from maternal depressive symptoms to adolescent depressive symptoms: the unique contribution of irritability symptoms

“…Items were coded as a 3‐ point scale (‘not true,’ ‘somewhat true,’ and ‘certainly true’) where age 7–12 years ( α  = .72). It should be noted that SDQ was found to be at least as efficient at detecting externalizing problems as the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Goodman & Scott, 1999); and associates with ICD‐10 diagnoses of CD and ODD (Goodman, Renfrew, & Mullick, 2000). However, the temper outburst item that is typically the final measure for the SDQ for conduct problems was removed in this study to avoid item overlap between this item and the irritability temper tantrum/outburst item.…”

The prevalence of SDQ-measured mental health problems at age 5–7 years and identification of predictors from birth to preschool age in a Danish birth cohort: The Copenhagen Child Cohort 2000

“…The SDQ has been used in both industrialized counties and in less developed countries [19], suggesting that the questionnaire can be used in different cultural settings.…”