Clinical Assessment of Child and Adolescent Personality and ...

CHAPTER 6 SELF-REPORT INVENTORIES115DSM-Oriented Anxiety Problems andSomatic Problems scales. The ability of theYSR to differentiate among clinical groupsis not addressed. Achenbach and Rescorla(2001) indicate that differential validity isthe driving force behind content selectionfor the current YSR and its predecessors.The most recent YSR has six items thatdiffer from the items in the previous YSR.Generally speaking, the validity evidencereported in the manual concerning the YSRis minimal. However, the previous versionof the YSR enjoys a great deal of validityevidence from independent researchers. Inaddition, in light of the close item correspondencebetween the two versions, onecan surmise that support for the validity ofthe earlier YSR can be taken as providingsome support for the current YSR, particularlythe problem scales.A study by Thurber and Hollingsworth(1992) compared YSR results withthe results of several other measures (e.g.,California Personality Inventory and BeckDepression Inventory) in a factor-analyticinvestigation. The sample for this studyincluded 102 adolescent inpatients. Supportfor the existence of the internalizingand externalizing dimensions was found,as these factors converged with measuresof similar constructs to form recognizablefactors. Of interest was an additionalfinding that the Externalizing Scale maybe affected by a tendency to respond in asocially desirable way and deny problems.The Internalizing Scale also showed somesensitivity to response sets in that it wasaffected somewhat by minimizing symptoms(Thurber & Hollingsworth, 1992).Brown (1999) likewise found that “highrisk”adolescents tended to underreportbehavior problems when school recordsand police reports were used as externalcriteria. Adolescent reports tended to agreewith other reports for “more positivelyoriented items.” These findings shouldbe taken into account when interpretingself-report results and should be combinedwith corroborating evidence in drawingconclusions.In contrast, Sourander, Helstelae, andHelenius (1999) found that Finnish adolescentsreported significantly more problemsthan their parents, and girls reported moredistress, especially internalizing problems,than boys. These authors concluded thatmany adolescents may not be receivingappropriate mental health services becausetheir problems go unrecognized by theirparents.A criterion-related validity study byHandwerk, Friman, and Larzelere (2000)compared the YSR to the NIMH DiagnosticInterview Schedule for Children(DISC). They compared DISC and YSRresults to behavior in a treatment programand, generally speaking, found no differencesbetween diagnostic groups formedby using either instrument. Similar resultshave also been found for the YSR in comparisonto the DISC Version 2.1 (Morgan& Cauce, 1999).More validity studies exist for variouscultural groups on the previous version ofthe YSR. Reliability and factorial validity ofthe YSR have been found to be comparableto North American findings in the Netherlands(de Groot, Koot, & Verhulst, 1996),Switzerland (Steinhausen & Metzke, 1998),Japan (Kuramoto et al. 1999), and Spain(Abad, Forns, Amador, & Martorell, 2000).Research has led to the conclusion, giventhat sex differences appear very consistentlyon the YSR, that sex is a more importantconsideration in predicting psychopathologythan demographic factors such as age ornationality (Steinhausen & Metzke, 1998).However, unlike the teacher and parentreport measures of the Achenbach system,the YSR does not include gender-specificnorms.A predictive validity study of the previousYSR was conducted in Finland, where121 adolescents were administered theYSR at age 14 or 15 and followed up toages 20 and 21 (Aronen, Teerikangas, &