Collishaw Stephan, Goodman Robert, Ford Tamsin, Rabe-Hesketh Sophia, Pickles Andrew
King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, MRC Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, London, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2009 May;50(5):571-80. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02026.x. Epub 2008 Dec 22.
Assessments of child psychopathology commonly rely on multiple informants, e.g., parents, teachers and children. Informants often disagree about the presence or absence of symptoms, reflecting reporter bias, situation-specific behaviour, or random variation in measurement. However, few studies have systematically tested how far correlates of child psychopathology differ between informants.
Parents, teachers and children in the 1999 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey (n = 4,525, ages 11-15 years) completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Multiple source regression models tested the extent to which child, family, school and neighbourhood characteristics were differentially associated with the three informants' reports. The 2004 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey (n = 3,438, ages 11-15 years) was used for replication.
Almost all significant correlates of child mental health were differentially related to parent, teacher and child ratings of adjustment. Parental distress, parent-rated family functioning, and child physical health problems were most strongly associated with parent ratings. Child ability and attainment, socio-economic factors, and school and neighbourhood disadvantage were more strongly associated with teacher and parent rated mental health than with children's own ratings. Gender differences in externalising problems were most pronounced for teacher ratings, and least so for child ratings; the opposite held true for emotional problems. Effect sizes for combined latent scores fell near the upper end of the range of effect sizes estimated for the three individual informants. Results showed good replication across the two samples.
The study highlights that there is substantial variation across informants in the links between associated factors and child psychopathology.
儿童精神病理学评估通常依赖于多个信息提供者，例如父母、教师和儿童。信息提供者对于症状的存在与否常常意见不一，这反映了报告偏差、特定情境下的行为或测量中的随机变异。然而，很少有研究系统地检验儿童精神病理学的相关因素在不同信息提供者之间的差异程度。
参与1999年英国儿童与青少年心理健康调查（n = 4525，年龄11 - 15岁）的父母、教师和儿童完成了优势与困难问卷。多源回归模型检验了儿童、家庭、学校和邻里特征与这三个信息提供者报告之间的差异关联程度。2004年英国儿童与青少年心理健康调查（n = 3438，年龄11 - 15岁）用于重复验证。
几乎所有儿童心理健康的显著相关因素与父母、教师和儿童对适应情况的评分都存在差异关联。父母的苦恼、父母评定的家庭功能以及儿童的身体健康问题与父母的评分关联最为紧密。儿童的能力与成就、社会经济因素以及学校和邻里劣势与教师和父母评定的心理健康的关联程度，要强于与儿童自身评分的关联程度。外化问题中的性别差异在教师评分中最为明显，在儿童评分中最不明显；情绪问题则相反。综合潜在分数的效应量落在为三个个体信息提供者估计的效应量范围的上限附近。结果在两个样本中显示出良好的重复性。
该研究强调，在相关因素与儿童精神病理学之间的联系上，不同信息提供者之间存在很大差异。
