Preliminary Validity of the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory with Taiwanese Clinic-Referred Children

Abstract

The Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) has previously been shown to be a psychometrically sound instrument used to assess disruptive behaviors in children in the United States and in other cultures/countries but not in Taiwan. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure and to establish the discriminative validity of the ECBI with two groups of Taiwanese children: 70 clinic-referred children with clinically elevated externalizing behavior problems and 70 community-based matched comparison children. Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a six-factor model for the clinic-referred sample and a five-factStrengths and Difficultieor model for the matched comparison sample, indicating that the ECBI is not unidimensional. Adequate convergent and divergent validity also were established between the ECBI Intensity and Problem Scales and another measure of child externalizing (for assessing convergent validity) and internalizing (for determining divergent validity) behavior. The results of the present study suggest that the ECBI is a valid measure of assessing externalizing behavior problems in Taiwanese children. Future research may seek to refine the factor structure of the ECBI in a Taiwanese sample. Future studies are also needed to examine other psychometrics of the ECBI, replicate this study with a larger sample, and establish its normative data in Taiwan.

Establishing Norms on the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory to Identify Disruptive Behaviors in Taiwanese Children

“…Information regarding the mean frequency of each Intensity Scale item, which highlights how often a certain disruptive behavior occurs, and the percentage of each Problem Scale item that caregivers rated as a problem in Table 2 is important for Taiwanese researchers and clinicians to know, as it helps to better understand which child behaviors are developmentally appropriate and which are clinically elevated based on caregivers’ reports. Previous research also has demonstrated adequate internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity with the CBCL Externalizing Scale, discriminative validity, and five-and six-factor structures of the ECBI in clinically referred Taiwanese children and their matched peers (Chen & Fortson, 2015; Chen, Fortson, & Tiano, under review). Future studies are needed to examine the test-retest reliability in Taiwanese families.…”