Nakigudde Janet, Bauta Besa, Wolf Sharon, Huang Keng-Yen
College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda.
School of Social Work, New York University, United States.
Jacobs J Psychiatry Behav Sci. 2016 Dec;2(2). Epub 2016 Nov 21.
children in low-income countries (LICs). Currently, there is little information available on the use of brief screening instruments Increased attention is being paid to identifying and responding to the social-emotional and behavioral needs of in LICs. The lack of psychometrically sound brief assessment tools creates a challenge in determining the population prevalence of child social-emotional and behavioral risk burden in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) country contexts. This study sought to determine the reliability and validity of three brief parent-rated screening tools-the Social Competence Scale (SCS), Pictorial Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PPSC), and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)-in Uganda. These tools consider both strength- and pathology-based dimensions of child outcomes.
Parents of 154 Ugandan 5-9 year-old children who were enrolled in Nursery to Primary 3 in Kampala (the capital city of Uganda) and part of a school-based mental health intervention trial were recruited and interviewed. About 54% of parents had educational attainment of primary school level or less. One hundred and one of these parents were interviewed a second time, about 5 months after the first/baseline assessment. Data from both time points were utilized to assess reliability and validity.
Inspection of psychometric properties supports the utility of these three brief screening measures to assess children's social-emotional and behavioral functioning as demonstrated by adequate internal consistency, temporal stability, discriminant validity, concurrent validity, and predictive validity. Subscales from three screening measures were inter-related and associated with family characteristics, such as parental depression and food insecurity, in the expected directions.
This study provides evidence supporting the appropriateness of using three tools and applying the developmental and behavioral constructs measured in each assessment in a low-income African setting.
低收入国家（LICs）的儿童。目前，关于在低收入国家使用简短筛查工具的信息很少。人们越来越关注识别和应对儿童的社会情感和行为需求。缺乏心理测量学上可靠的简短评估工具给确定撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）国家背景下儿童社会情感和行为风险负担的人群患病率带来了挑战。本研究旨在确定三种简短的家长评定筛查工具——社会能力量表（SCS）、图片儿童症状清单（PPSC）和优势与困难问卷（SDQ）——在乌干达的信度和效度。这些工具同时考虑了基于优势和病理学的儿童结果维度。
招募并采访了154名乌干达5至9岁儿童的家长，这些儿童就读于坎帕拉（乌干达首都）的幼儿园至小学三年级，并且是一项基于学校的心理健康干预试验的一部分。约54%的家长受教育程度为小学及以下。其中101名家长在第一次/基线评估约5个月后接受了第二次访谈。利用两个时间点的数据来评估信度和效度。
对心理测量特性的检验支持了这三种简短筛查措施在评估儿童社会情感和行为功能方面的效用，表现为具有足够的内部一致性、时间稳定性、区分效度、同时效度和预测效度。三种筛查措施的子量表相互关联，并与家庭特征（如父母抑郁和粮食不安全）在预期方向上相关。
本研究提供了证据，支持在低收入非洲环境中使用这三种工具以及应用每次评估中测量的发展和行为结构的适宜性。
