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Emotional and Behavioral Problems Among Impoverished Kenyan Youth: Factor Structure and Sex-Differences

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Abstract

Data on youth emotional and behavioral problems from societies in Sub-Saharan Africa are lacking. This may be due to the fact that few youth mental health assessments have been tested for construct validity of syndrome structure across multicultural societies that include developing countries, and almost none have been tested in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Youth Self-Report (YSR), for example, has shown great consistency of its syndrome structure across many cultures, yet data from only one developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa have been included. In this study, we test the factor structure of YSR syndromes among Kenyan youth ages 11–18 years from an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya and examine sex-differences in levels of emotional and behavioral problems. We find the eight syndrome structure of the YSR to fit these data well (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.049). While Kenyan girls have significantly higher internalizing (Anxious/Depressed, Withdrawn/Depressed, Somatic) problem scores than boys, these differences are of similar magnitude to published multicultural findings. The results support the generalizability of the YSR syndrome structure to Kenyan youth and are in line with multicultural findings supporting the YSR as an assessment of emotional and behavioral problems in diverse societies.

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Acknowledgments

This study was conceived and developed by the Africa Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) in partnership with the Kenya branch office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The research was supported by AMHF and CDC, along with funding from a Fulbright Fellowship to Kenya (to V.S.H. in 2008). This work was also supported by the Fogarty International Center and the National Institutes of Health (K01 TW008410 to V.S.H.). We thank Dr. Thomas Achenbach and Dr. Leslie Rescorla for their mentorship, use of the YSR, and review of an earlier version of this manuscript

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no competing interests.

Experiment Participants

This research was approved by the Kenyatta National Hospital institutional review board in Kenya. All study participants provided informed assent, and their parents/guardians provided informed consent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, 1 S. Prospect Street, Burlington, VT, USA

    Valerie S. Harder, David C. Rettew & Masha Y. Ivanova

  2. Africa Mental Health Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya

    Valerie S. Harder, Victoria N. Mutiso, Lincoln I. Khasakhala & David M. Ndetei

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Lincoln I. Khasakhala & David M. Ndetei

  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Global Disease Detection, Nairobi, Kenya

    Heather M. Burke

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  1. Valerie S. Harder
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  2. Victoria N. Mutiso
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Correspondence to Valerie S. Harder.

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Harder, V.S., Mutiso, V.N., Khasakhala, L.I. et al. Emotional and Behavioral Problems Among Impoverished Kenyan Youth: Factor Structure and Sex-Differences. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 36, 580–590 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-014-9419-0

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