Parent, teacher, and hospital staff evaluations of severely disturbed children.

Evaluations of parents, teachers, and hospital staff were compared using measures of deviance, improvement, and outcomes for short-term psychiatric inpatient children. Measures were completed at inception and termination of hospitalization and at a one-year follow-up. Evaluations by parents and community teachers differed from those by hospital staff, and pretreatment and post-treatment evaluations reliably predicted child functioning at home and, to a lesser extent, at school one year later.