Theunissen Meinou H C, de Wolff Marianne S, Eekhout Iris, van Vulpen Coryke, Reijneveld Sijmen A
TNO Child Health, Leiden, Netherlands.
Pharos, Dutch Centre of Expertise on Health Disparities, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2024 Feb 5;15:1289158. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1289158. eCollection 2024.
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire self-report (SDQ-SR) is a valid instrument for detection of emotional and behavioral problems. The aim of this study was to compare the psychometric properties of the SDQ-SR for low and higher educated adolescents, and to explore its suitability.
We included 426 adolescents. We compared internal consistency for low-educated, i.e., at maximum pre-vocational secondary education, and higher educated adolescents and assessed whether the five-factor structure of the SDQ holds across educational levels. We also interviewed 24 low-educated adolescents, and 17 professionals.
On most SDQ subscales the low-educated adolescents had more problematic mean scores than the higher educated adolescents. Findings on the invariance factor analyses were inconsistent, with some measures showing a bad fit of the five factor model, and this occurring relatively more for the low-educated adolescents. Professionals and adolescents reported that the SDQ included difficult wordings.
Our findings imply that the scale structure of the SDQ-SR is slightly poorer for low educated adolescents. Given this caveat, psychometric properties of the SDQ-SR are generally sufficient for use, regardless of educational level.
优势与困难问卷自评版（SDQ-SR）是检测情绪和行为问题的有效工具。本研究旨在比较低学历和高学历青少年的SDQ-SR心理测量特性，并探讨其适用性。
我们纳入了426名青少年。我们比较了低学历（即最高职业前中等教育水平）和高学历青少年的内部一致性，并评估了SDQ的五因素结构在不同教育水平上是否成立。我们还访谈了24名低学历青少年和17名专业人员。
在大多数SDQ分量表上，低学历青少年的平均得分比高学历青少年更成问题。不变性因素分析的结果不一致，一些测量显示五因素模型拟合不佳，且这种情况在低学历青少年中相对更常见。专业人员和青少年报告称，SDQ包含难以理解的措辞。
我们的研究结果表明，SDQ-SR的量表结构对低学历青少年来说稍差。考虑到这一注意事项，SDQ-SR的心理测量特性总体上足以使用，无论教育水平如何。
