Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESA Symptom-Level Examination of Parent–Child Agreement in the Diagnosis of Anxious Youths
Section snippets
Participants
Participants included 98 children meeting criteria for an anxiety diagnosis (SAD, SP, or GAD) and their parents (98 mothers, 84 fathers). Participants (consecutive admissions) sought treatment from the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic at Temple University. Criteria for exclusion were use of antianxiety medication, child IQ below 80, and psychotic symptoms. Comorbid conditions were included. Patients (54 boys) were 7.5 to 14.0 years old (mean 10.2, SD = 1.8). The majority were white
Diagnostic Versus Symptom Agreement
Phi coefficients indicating the associations between parent and child reports at the diagnostic and symptom levels are presented in Table 1, as well as corresponding κ values and percentage of agreement indices. All four diagnostic ϕ coefficients were negative, indicating that the association between parent and child reports within each disorder and across all three disorders showed more disagreement than agreement. In contrast, all four symptom ϕ coefficients were found to be positive,
DISCUSSION
This study explored parent–child agreement at the symptom level, within the diagnostic model, in the assessment of SAD, SP, and GAD and found that for all three disorders, parent–child agreement at the symptom level was stronger than parent–child agreement at the diagnostic level. As in previous research (e.g., Choudhury et al., 2003; Grills and Ollendick, 2003), agreement at the diagnostic level was poor. Consistent with previous research (e.g., Herjanic and Reich, 1982), the strength of
REFERENCES (38)
- et al.
Childhood anxiety disorders: parent-child (dis)agreement using a structured interview for the DSM-IV
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2003) - et al.
High agreement but low kappa: I. The problem of two paradoxes
J Clin Epidemiol
(1990) - et al.
The chi-square test and accompanying effect size indices
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2002) - et al.
Multiple informant agreement and the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Parents and Children
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2003) - et al.
Parent and child contributions to diagnosis of mental disorder: are both informants always necessary?
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1999) - et al.
Comorbidity in childhood anxiety disorders and treatment outcome
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2001) - et al.
Reliability of the DSM-III-R childhood anxiety disorders using structured interview: interrater and parent-child agreement
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1994) - et al.
Age differences in the reliability of parent and child reports of child anxious symptomatology using a structured interview
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1992) - et al.
Test-retest reliability of the DSM-III-R childhood anxiety disorders symptoms using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children
J Anxiety Disord
(1995) - et al.
Test-retest reliability of anxiety symptoms and diagnoses with the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV: child and parent versions
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2001)
Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: implication of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity
Psychol Bull
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV)
Parent and child reports of depressive symptoms in children at low and high risk of depression
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
Evaluation of the original Ontario Child Health Study scales
Can J Psychiatry
Discrepancies among mother, child, and teacher reports: examining the contributions of maternal depression and anxiety
J Abnorm Child Psychol
A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales
Educ Psychol Meas
Social desirability and self-reported anxiety in children: an analysis of the RCMAS Lie Scale
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Regression analysis of multiple-source longitudinal outcomes: a “Stirling County” depression study
Am J Epidemiol
Cross-informant agreement in the assessment of social phobia in youth
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Cited by (309)
Differential effects of generalized anxiety and separation anxiety on brain structural development during adolescence
2023, Journal of Affective DisordersState-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children – Parent-reported Trait-version; a psychometric analysis of the measure in children on the autism spectrum
2023, Research in Autism Spectrum DisordersParent-adolescent conflict
2023, Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Health, First EditionFear of illness & virus evaluation (FIVE) COVID-19 scales for children-parent/caregiver-report development and validation
2022, Journal of Anxiety Disorders
This study was supported in part by NIMH research grants MH59087 and MH60653 .
Article Plus (online only) materials for this article appear on the Journal's Web site: www.jaacap.com.