Viglione Jill, Childs Kristina K, Peck Jennifer H, Chapman Jason E, Drazdowski Tess K, McCart Michael R, Sheidow Ashli J
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida, 12805 Pegasus Drive, Orlando, FL 8216, United States.
Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), 10 Shelton McMurphey Blvd., Eugene, OR 97401, United States.
Child Youth Serv Rev. 2023 Sep;152. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107039. Epub 2023 May 30.
Accurate and timely intervention in the justice system is particularly critical in rural communities, given documented barriers to accessible, evidence-based services for youth. As youth in the juvenile justice system have a high prevalence of behavioral health needs, accurate assessment of those needs is a critical first step in linking youth to appropriate care. The goal of the current study is to examine the reliability of a brief assessment (the Brief Problem Checklist [BPC]) among a sample of 222 justice-involved youth and their caregivers who primarily reside in rural communities in the United States. Using a series of reliability analyses and tests of agreement, we examined whether youth and caregiver BPC produces reliable scales, the strength of the convergence among each of the BPC scales, and youth and caregiver agreement on the BPC scales. Findings support the reliability of the BPC, but not inter-rater reliability. Poor agreement between youth and caregiver reports exists for both youth internalizing and externalizing problems. Additionally, the BPC was significantly related to several theoretically relevant constructs, including treatment, substance use disorder severity, and family history of substance use. These findings lend merit to discussions about the need for more research on the reliability and validity of assessment instruments before their widespread use in guiding youth- and agency case planning decisions, along with informing conclusions about program effectiveness.
鉴于有记录表明农村社区的青少年难以获得基于证据的服务，司法系统中准确及时的干预措施在农村社区尤为关键。由于少年司法系统中的青少年有很高比例存在行为健康需求，准确评估这些需求是将青少年与适当护理联系起来的关键第一步。本研究的目的是在美国主要居住在农村社区的222名涉及司法的青少年及其照顾者样本中，检验一种简短评估工具（简短问题清单[BPC]）的可靠性。通过一系列可靠性分析和一致性检验，我们研究了青少年和照顾者填写的BPC是否能产生可靠的量表、BPC各量表之间的收敛强度，以及青少年和照顾者在BPC量表上的一致性。研究结果支持BPC的可靠性，但不支持评分者间的可靠性。在青少年内化问题和外化问题上，青少年与照顾者报告之间的一致性都很差。此外，BPC与几个理论上相关的构念显著相关，包括治疗、物质使用障碍严重程度和物质使用家族史。这些发现有助于讨论在评估工具广泛用于指导青少年和机构的个案规划决策之前，需要对其可靠性和有效性进行更多研究，同时也为关于项目有效性的结论提供参考。
