Mullick M S, Goodman R
Department of Psychiatry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2001 Feb;36(2):94-9. doi: 10.1007/s001270050295.
In the developing world, child psychiatric disorders are common but child mental health professionals are scarce. A cheap and effective method for detecting child psychiatric problems would be useful. The present study examined the potential suitability of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for this role.
SDQs were administered to the parents and teachers of 261 Bangladeshi 4-16 year olds: 99 drawn from a psychiatric clinic and 162 drawn from the community. Self-report SDQs were completed by 11-16 year olds. Children from the clinic sample were assigned psychiatric diagnoses blind to their SDQ scores.
SDQ scores distinguished well between community and clinic samples, and also between children with different psychiatric diagnoses in the clinic sample. A simple algorithm based on SDQ scores was used to predict whether children had hyperkinesis, conduct disorders, emotional disorders or any psychiatric disorder--rates of predicted disorder varied markedly between clinic and community samples.
Predictions based on multi-informant SDQs potentially provide a cheap and easy method for detecting children in the developing world with significant mental health problems. The potential effectiveness of any such screening programme should be evaluated on a broad range of children, using both international and culture-specific assessments.
在发展中世界，儿童精神疾病很常见，但儿童心理健康专业人员稀缺。一种廉价且有效的检测儿童精神问题的方法会很有用。本研究考察了优势与困难问卷（SDQ）在这方面的潜在适用性。
对261名4至16岁孟加拉儿童的家长和教师进行了SDQ问卷调查，其中99名来自精神科诊所，162名来自社区。11至16岁的儿童完成了自填式SDQ问卷。对诊所样本中的儿童进行精神科诊断时，不考虑他们的SDQ得分。
SDQ得分在社区样本和诊所样本之间，以及诊所样本中不同精神科诊断的儿童之间有显著差异。基于SDQ得分的一个简单算法被用来预测儿童是否患有多动症、品行障碍、情绪障碍或任何精神疾病——预测疾病的发生率在诊所样本和社区样本之间有显著差异。
基于多信息提供者的SDQ进行的预测可能为在发展中世界检测有严重心理健康问题的儿童提供一种廉价且简便的方法。任何此类筛查项目的潜在有效性都应该在广泛的儿童群体中，使用国际和特定文化的评估方法进行评估。
