Abstract

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Background

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief measure of children’s and adolescents’ mental health. There are different versions of the questionnaire: a version for children and adolescents to complete by self-reporting, a version for parents and guardians to complete (“parent-rated”), and a version for teachers to complete. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the parent-rated SDQ with a nationally representative sample of Canadian children and adolescents.

Data and methods

Data are from cycle 1 (2007 to 2009), cycle 2 (2009 to 2011), cycle 3 (2012 to 2013) and cycle 4 (2014 to 2015) of the Canadian Health Measures Survey. Data include 7,451 Canadian children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years (49.3% female). Parents and guardians completed the SDQ by reflecting on their child’s behaviour over the past six months. Factorial validity was examined via confirmatory factor analysis, which included testing the original five-factor SDQ model and alternative three-factor and higher-order models. Reliability was assessed through composite reliability scores. Measurement invariance across subgroups was also assessed.

Results

The original five-factor (i.e., emotional symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems, hyperactivity and prosocial behaviour) SDQ fit the data satisfactorily, demonstrated evidence of reliability, and was invariant across sex (male vs. female), age (children vs. adolescents) and survey language (English vs. French). The higher-order solution fit the data acceptably, and the three-factor solution did not fit the data well.

Interpretation

The original five-factor, parent-rated SDQ demonstrates evidence of factorial validity and reliability as a population measure of mental health difficulties among Canadian children and adolescents.

Keywords

mental health, problem behaviour, confirmatory factor analysis, measurement, youth

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.25318/82-003-x202000800002-eng

Findings

Mental health difficulties are prevalent among children and adolescents across the world. This is particularly important from a public health perspective because many psychological and behavioural disorders often begin in childhood. The World Health Organization has cited poor mental health as one of the leading causes of disability and economic burden. Between 1996 to 1997 and 2009 to 2010, the use of health care services for mental illness in Canada increased by 35% for children and 44% for adolescents. However, because not all children and adolescents with mental health difficulties access health care services, estimates based on administrative data from health care services may underestimate the prevalence of mental health difficulties in these populations. Therefore, identifying brief measures of mental health in children and adolescents that demonstrate evidence of validity is critical to informing screening, population-level surveillance and prevention strategies. [Full article]

Authors

Matt D. Hoffmann, Justin J. Lang (justin.lang@canada.ca), Heather M. Orpana and Margaret de Groh are with the Centre for Surveillance and Applied Research at the Public Health Agency of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. Justin J. Lang is also with the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, as are Michelle D. Guerrero and Gary S. Goldfield. Jameason D. Cameron is with the Department of Pharmacy at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Gary S. Goldfield is also with the School of Human Kinetics and the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa. Heather M. Orpana is also with the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa.

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