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Psychometric Properties and Normative Data for the Preschool Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in Two-Year-Old Children

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Abstract

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a popular standardised instrument typically used for screening psychopathology in children and adolescents. However, peer reviewed studies evaluating the psychometric properties of the parent-rated preschool SDQ are lacking. The current study involved mothers of 5481 2 year olds (52 % male) from the Growing Up in New Zealand cohort, and investigated the psychometric properties of the preschool SDQ within this cohort. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the SDQ’s factor structure and test for measurement invariance of the factor model. Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure the internal consistency of the subscales and total difficulties scale. We found support for a modified five-factor model, in which the prosocial factor was extended into a positive construal factor by allowing cross-loadings of reverse-scored items. Full measurement invariance was found across gender and socioeconomic status, and partial invariance was found across mother’s ethnicity. Cronbach’s alpha was satisfactory for all subscales (α range = 0.71–0.84), except peer problems (α = 0.54). Normative scores and bandings for normal, borderline and abnormal ranges are described for each subscale. Analyses revealed group differences in scores for child’s gender, mother’s ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Overall, satisfactory psychometric properties were found for the preschool SDQ in 2 year olds, indicating that that the questionnaire can be used in very young children.

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Notes

  1. We included children with complete gender, SES and SDQ data (as opposed to complete gender, SES, SDQ and mother’s ethnicity data), as our analyses with mother’s ethnicity only include a subsample of the total sample due to the exclusion of the ‘Other’ ethnic group (see discussion of mother’s ethnicity measure in methods). As such, some participants from our final sample of 5481 children have missing data for mother’s self-prioritised ethnicity (n = 16).

Abbreviations

SES:

Socioeconomic status

SDQ:

Strengths and difficulties questionnaire

CAPI:

Computer assisted personal interviews

CFA:

Confirmatory factor analysis

CFI:

Comparative fit index

TLI:

The Tucker-Lewis index

RMSEA:

Root mean square error of approximation

MANOVA:

Multivariate analysis of variance

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

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Acknowledgments

The study has been designed and conducted by the Growing Up in New Zealand study team, led by the University of Auckland. The authors acknowledge the contributions of the original study investigators: Susan M.B. Morton, Polly E. Atatoa Carr, Cameron C. Grant, Arier C. Lee, Dinusha K. Bandara, Jatender Mohal, Jennifer M. Kinloch, Johanna M. Schmidt, Mary R. Hedges, Vivienne C. Ivory, Te Kani R. Kingi, Renee Liang, Lana M. Perese, Elizabeth Peterson, Jan. E. Pryor, Elaine Reese, Elizabeth M. Robinson, Karen E. Waldie, Clare R. Wall. The views reported in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Growing Up in New Zealand investigators.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Stephanie D’Souza, Karen E Waldie & Elizabeth R. Peterson

  2. Centre for Longitudinal Research - He Ara ki Mua, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Stephanie D’Souza, Lisa Underwood & Susan M. B. Morton

  3. School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Susan M. B. Morton

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  1. Stephanie D’Souza
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Correspondence to Karen E Waldie.

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Funding

Growing Up in New Zealand has been funded by the New Zealand Ministries of Social Development, Health, Education, Justice, and Pacific Island Affairs; the former Ministry of Science Innovation and the former Department of Labour (now both part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment); the former Ministry of Women’s Affairs (now the Ministry for Women); the Department of Corrections; the Families Commission (now known as the Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit); Te Puni Kokiri; New Zealand Police; Sport New Zealand; the Housing New Zealand Corporation; and the former Mental Health Commission, The University of Auckland and Auckland UniServices Limited. Other support for the study has been provided by the NZ Health Research Council, Statistics New Zealand, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Office of Ethnic Affairs.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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D’Souza, S., Waldie, K.E., Peterson, E.R. et al. Psychometric Properties and Normative Data for the Preschool Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in Two-Year-Old Children. J Abnorm Child Psychol 45, 345–357 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0176-2

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