Validação do Conduct Disorder Screener entre jovens portugueses

Abstract

Conduct Disorder (CD) may be related to persistent and severe delinquency be-haviors in adolescence. It can last into adulthood and be a precursor to Antisocial Personality Disorder. Considering the strong consensus regarding the need for prevention and early intervention in youths with CD, due to the negative impact they have on society, the Conduct Disorder Screener (CDS) can fill a significant gap in quickly obtaining relevant data on CD in adolescents and make an im-portant contribution to their research in our Country. The aim of the present study was to validate the CDS in a total sample of Portuguese adolescents (N = 601; M age = 15.95 years; SD = 1.05 years; range = 13-18 years) subdivided in forensic male group, school male group and school female group. The scale showed ade-quate psychometric characteristics, namely in terms of a one-dimensional facto-rial structure, internal consistency by Cronbach's alpha and Omega coefficient, convergent validity, divergent validity, criterion validity and known-groups va-lidity. Considering the obtained results, it is justified to use it in a forensic and school context to identify Conduct Disorder in Portuguese adolescents.