Goemans Anouk, Tarren-Sweeney Michael, van Geel Mitch, Vedder Paul
1 Institute of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
2 School of Health Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2018 Jan;23(1):9-24. doi: 10.1177/1359104517706527. Epub 2017 May 16.
Children in foster care experience higher levels and rates of psychosocial difficulties than children from the general population. Governments and child welfare services have a responsibility to identify those children in care who have need for therapeutic services. This can be achieved through systematic screening and monitoring of psychosocial difficulties among all children in foster care. However, general screening and assessment measures such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) might not adequately screen for the range of difficulties experienced by foster children. The Brief Assessment Checklists for Children (BAC-C) and Brief Assessment Checklists for Adolescents (BAC-A) are measures designed to screen for and monitor attachment- and trauma-related difficulties among child welfare populations. This article reports psychometric properties of the BAC-C and BAC-A, estimated in a population study of 219 Dutch foster children. The results suggest the BAC-C and BAC-A perform both screening and monitoring functions well. Their screening accuracy, internal reliability and concurrent validity are comparable to those estimated for the SDQ within the same child and adolescent sample. Future research is needed to assess the value of the Brief Assessment Checklists (BAC) compared to other measures and to validate cut-points for the BAC. This study further establishes the BAC-A and BAC-C as valid and useful mental health screening and monitoring measures for use with children and adolescents in foster care.
与普通儿童相比，寄养儿童经历心理社会困难的程度和发生率更高。政府和儿童福利服务机构有责任识别那些需要治疗服务的寄养儿童。这可以通过对所有寄养儿童的心理社会困难进行系统筛查和监测来实现。然而，诸如优势与困难问卷（SDQ）和儿童行为检查表（CBCL）等一般筛查和评估措施可能无法充分筛查出寄养儿童所经历的各种困难。儿童简短评估检查表（BAC-C）和青少年简短评估检查表（BAC-A）是旨在筛查和监测儿童福利人群中与依恋和创伤相关困难的措施。本文报告了在对219名荷兰寄养儿童进行的一项人群研究中估计的BAC-C和BAC-A的心理测量特性。结果表明，BAC-C和BAC-A在筛查和监测功能方面都表现良好。它们的筛查准确性、内部信度和同时效度与在同一儿童和青少年样本中对SDQ估计的结果相当。未来需要进行研究，以评估简短评估检查表（BAC）与其他措施相比的价值，并验证BAC的切点。本研究进一步确立了BAC-A和BAC-C作为用于寄养儿童和青少年的有效且有用的心理健康筛查和监测措施。
