Psychometric Properties of the Danish Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire: The SDQ Assessed for More than 70,000 Raters in Four Different Cohorts

Abstract

BackgroundThe Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural five factor instrument developed to assess emotional and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties for parent and teacher ratings in the Danish version of SDQ for different age groups of boys and girls.MethodsThe Danish versions of the SDQ were distributed to a total of 71,840 parent and teacher raters of 5-, 7- and 10- to 12-year-old children included in four large scale Danish cohorts. The internal reliability was assessed and exploratory factor analyses were carried out to replicate the originally proposed five factor structure. Mean scores and percentiles were examined in order to differentiate between low, medium and high levels of emotional and behavioural difficulties.ResultsThe original five factor structure could be substantially confirmed. The Conduct items however did not solely load on the proposed Conduct scale and the Conduct scale was further contaminated by non-conduct items. Positively worded items tended to load on the Prosocial scale. This was more so the case for teachers than for parents. Parent and teacher means and percentiles were found to be lower compared to British figures but similar to or only slightly lower than those found in the other Nordic countries. The percentiles for girls were generally lower than for boys, markedly so for the teacher hyperactivity ratings.ConclusionsThe study supports the usefulness of the SDQ as a screening tool for boys and girls across age groups and raters in the general Danish population.

Subthreshold and threshold attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms in childhood: psychosocial outcomes in adolescence in boys and girls

“…Such results may be due to measurement methods as well as to manifest change in symptom levels. Although the SDQ, which was used in this study to assess adolescent symptoms, is to be regarded as a screening tool, it has been confirmed as a reliable estimate for assessing ADHD symptoms 54.…”

“…Internalizing problems (anxiety, depression, psychosomatic symptoms) were defined as present if the scores were above the cutoff level on self and/or parent ratings. The SDQ has been confirmed as a useful screening tool for boys and girls and across age groups 54.…”

“…The score ranges between 0 (no problems) and 10 (serious problems), and was dichotomized at a cutoff value of 7 points for both the self‐rated and the parent‐rated subscore as a measure of abnormality in line with SDQ standard original three‐band categorization (http://www.sdqinfo.com/py/sdqinfo/c0.py). The SDQ is commonly used to assess hyperactivity and inattention in population‐based studies of ADHD in children and youth 40, 53, 54.…”

Detecting Psychiatric Disorders in Preschoolers: Screening With the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

“…27 Two recent studies with younger age groups in the Netherlands (5-to 6-year-olds) and Denmark (5-year-olds) replicated the reliability and validity and confirmed the five-factor structure of the SDQ among preschoolers. 28,29 The Norwegian version has been validated in several large studies. 22,25 In our sample, Cronbach's alpha for the total difficulties score was 0.77 for the parent SDQ 30 and 0.86 for the teacher SDQ.…”

Screening for the hyperkinetic disorder by using strength and difficulties questionnaire teacher-report (SDQ-TR) in Indonesia school-aged children

“…Spanish SDQ has an internal consistency value α = 0.64-0.83 for SDQ-TR and α = 0.58-0.77 for SDQ-PR (Rodriguez-Hernandez et al, 2012). The Danish SDQ-PR has a good internal consistency value (α ≥ 0.7) for the total difficulty and subscale of hyperactivity (Niclasen et al, 2012).…”