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A Longitudinal Community Study: Do Psychosocial Risk Factors and Child Behavior Checklist Scores at 5 Years of Age Predict Psychiatric Diagnoses at a Later Age?

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To examine the extent to which certain risk factors in 5-to 6-year-old children predict later psychopathology in a population-based sample of children from the province of Limburg in the south of the Netherlands.

Method

Of the 2,290 children of interest, 1,317 children were screened with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and psychosocial risk factors for these children were collected. On the basis of the CBCL ratings, 403 children participated in the second stage in which, 1.5 years later, standardized child psychiatric information was obtained. Weighted logistic regression analyses were used to investigate predictors of psychopathology.

Results

In separate analyses of specific types of child psychopathology, different risk factors emerged as significant. Low-level parental occupation and having foreign-born parents were predictive of conduct disorders, and living in a single-parent family and a having a life event were the most important predictors of mood and anxiety disorders. Furthermore, CBCL-based ratings at 5 to 6 years of age corresponded well with interview-defined diagnoses 1.5 years later.

Conclusions

Investigation of psychosocial risk factors and CBCL scores at the age of 5 to 6 years could be helpful in predicting child psychopathology and could help identify children at risk, in order to provide them with timely attention.

Section snippets

Subjects and Procedure

Stage 1: Months 1–9. In the first stage of the study, all parents of children in the second grade of normal kindergarten schools in the south of the province Limburg (the Netherlands) were approached by the Youth Health Care organization for participation in the study. This included all public schools in this region (private schools do not exist in the Netherlands) excluding those for special educational needs. The national organization is responsible for performing a periodic health

Psychosocial Risk Factors

Risk factors were calculated for the five domains and for the category “any disorder.”Table 2 presents the impact of the selected risk factors on these domains. Confidence intervals (CIs) are given for significant odds ratios (ORs). The occurrence of a life event was associated with ADHD, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders. Whereas low-level parental occupation was a risk factor for conduct disorders, middle-level parental occupation was protective, compared with a high-level occupation,

DISCUSSION

This article reports the results of a longitudinal community study of a large-population sample in the Netherlands. It describes the influence of psychosocial risk factors and CBCL scores at 5 to 6 years of age in relation to child psychiatric disorders 1.5 years later. Because diagnostic groups were nonexclusive (irrespective of comorbidity), it is not possible to draw conclusions for “pure” groups. However, this makes the study representative of psychopathology in the general population, in

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    This study was supported by the University Hospital of Maastricht fund for outstanding and competitive clinical research, “Het Profileringsfonds”; the Prevention Foundation of the Netherlands; the Brain and Behavior Research Institute of the University of Maastricht; and the St-Clemens and Kan. Salden Foundations of the Netherlands.

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