The Rutter Parent Scale A2 and Teacher Scale B2 in Chinese. II. Clinical validity among Chinese children.

This is the second of two papers about the Rutter Scales A2 and B2 among Chinese children in Hong Kong. A consecutive series of patients (n = 124) suffering from emotional and conduct disorders is compared with two control groups. Similarities and differences were found when compared with Rutter's original work. In particular, not all the items could differentiate between patients and controls. But with total scores constructed according to local standards the combined sensitivity of both Scales was highly satisfactory (96% for boys and 93% for girls). No combined specificity was available owing to the design of the study, but the respective value for individual Scales was satisfactory (using optimal cut-off points the lowest specificity was 74% for Scale A2 in boys). Their discriminative power for conduct and emotional disorders was good except in the case of A2 with emotionally disordered girls where only 13% of the cases were correctly identified. Again except A2 in girls the compositions of the anti-social and neurotic subscores of both Scales among Chinese children were similar to that for English children. It appears that these two simple Scales do have important potentials among Chinese children.