A novel behavioural screening questionnaire, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), was administered along with Rutter questionnaires to parents and teachers of 403 children drawn from dental and psychiatric clinics. Scores derived from the SDQ and Rutter questionnaires were highly correlated; parent-teacher correlations for the two sets of measures were comparable or favoured the SDQ. The two sets of measures did not differ in their ability to discriminate between psychiatric and dental clinic attenders. These preliminary findings suggest that the SDQ functions as well as the Rutter questionnaires while offering the following additional advantages: a focus on strengths as well as difficulties; better coverage of inattention, peer relationships, and prosocial behaviour; a shorter format; and a single form suitable for both parents and teachers, perhaps thereby increasing parent-teacher correlations.

https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01545.x

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A Research Note

• This article reviews the evidence for differing rates of depression between the sexes in the United States and elsewhere during the last 40 years, and then critically analyzes the various explanations offered. These explanations include the possibility that the trends are spurious because of artifacts produced by methods of reporting symptoms, or that they are real because of biological susceptibility (possibly genetic or female endocrine), psychosocial factors such as social discrimination, or female-learned helplessness.

Sex differences and the epidemiology of depression.

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioral screening questionnaire that can be completed in 5 minutes by the parents or teachers of children aged 4 to 16; there is a self-report version for 11- to 16-year-olds. In this study, mothers completed the SDQ and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) on 132 children aged 4 through 7 and drawn from psychiatric and dental clinics. Scores from the SDQ and CBCL were highly correlated and equally able to discriminate psychiatric from dental cases. As judged against a semistructured interview, the SDQ was significantly better than the CBCL at detecting inattention and hyperactivity, and at least as good at detecting internalizing and externalizing problems. Mothers of low-risk children were twice as likely to prefer the SDQ.

Comparing the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Child Behavior Checklist: Is Small Beautiful?

Background Placebo treatments have been reported to help patients with many diseases, but the quality of the evidence supporting this finding has not been rigorously evaluated. Methods We conducted a systematic review of clinical trials in which patients were randomly assigned to either placebo or no treatment. A placebo could be pharmacologic (e.g., a tablet), physical (e.g., a manipulation), or psychological (e.g., a conversation). Results We identified 130 trials that met our inclusion criteria. After the exclusion of 16 trials without relevant data on outcomes, there were 32 with binary outcomes (involving 3795 patients, with a median of 51 patients per trial) and 82 with continuous outcomes (involving 4730 patients, with a median of 27 patients per trial). As compared with no treatment, placebo had no significant effect on binary outcomes, regardless of whether these outcomes were subjective or objective. For the trials with continuous outcomes, placebo had a beneficial effect, but the effect decreas...

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Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment.

The Development of Offending and Antisocial Behaviour from Childhood: Key Findings from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development

We have studied 29 school phobic youngsters (14 boys and 15 girls), of mean age 12 years 10 months (SD = 147 months) shortly before admission to an adolescent psychiatric in-patient unit The diagnosis was made when there was severe difficulty in attending school, severe emotional upset at the prospect of having to go to school, staying home during school hours with the parents' knowledge and absence of significant anti-social disorders Information was gathered from the patient and one parent, usually mother Most youngsters had completely refused to go to school (23) and the remainder went occasionally with great reluctance; this seemed to depend on the attitudes of parents, school and medical agencies Psychoses, gross physical illness, truancy, and neurotic disturbances other than school phobia resulting in absence from school were excluded The cases were classified, reliably, into 19 ‘acute’ (11 boys, 8 girk) and 10 ‘chronic’ (3 boys, 7 girls) school phobics This was done on the criterion of previous severe reluctance to attend school: at least 3 years of trouble-free attendance led to a classification as ‘acute’, the remainder were ‘chronic’ The mean age of the acutes (13 years 1 month) was significantly higher (P<0001) than that of the chronics (12 years 3 months) In the acutes, the school phobia had been present 5 months (SD =35 months) on average in the boys, and 1 year 5 months (SD = 165 months) on average in the girls; which was a significant difference (P<002) The mean time between onset of symptoms and complete refusal was 35 months [boys-2 months (SD = 2 months) girls-6 months (SD = 9 months)] The following features did not show significant differences between the acutes and chronics; social class of the patient's father (the typical social class was 5a on the Hall and Jones Scale of Occupational Prestige for Males), the mean age of mother when the child was bom, the number of only or youngest children in the family, birth complications, the number of severe illnesses, accidents and operations added to separations from mother in the first decade, missing some school without the parents' knowledge, suicidal gestures, the occurrence of symptoms on transfer to secondary school, somatic symptoms, frank mental illness in parents and IQ (WISC total score); 4 acute cases had symptoms coming on following a bereavement

School phobia—its classification and relationship to dependency

As part of a survey of agoraphobic women in the general population, it was found that school phobia occurred in their children to a greater extent than would be expected. The average incidence in children aged 11 to 15 was 14 per cent. The women with school phobic children had had school phobia themselves to an undue extent.

School phobia in the children of agoraphobic women.

The incidence of past school phobia was surveyed by questionnaire in 786 women under 60 years of age who were members of an agoraphobia correspondence club. Twenty-two per cent admitted to previous school phobia, a proportion similar to that found in 57 non-agoraphobic neurotic controls. Past school phobia predicted an earlier onset of subsequent agoraphobia and a more severe psychiatric state as far as symptoms not specifically agoraphobic were concerned. Adolescent agoraphobic difficulties were more associated with school phobia than with agoraphobia in adult life. It was concluded that school phobia leads to agoraphobia in only a small proportion of cases. Although school phobia may predispose to later agoraphobia, it seems more likely that both conditions reflect a lasting tendency to neurotic illness.

School phobia and agoraphobia

A hundred-and-twenty-five school phobic youngsters had been treated in a psychiatric in-patient unit for young adolescents of secondary school age over a seven-year period; a hundred of them were reviewed on average three years after discharge. About a third of cases were found to have improved little; they had persistent severe symptoms of emotional disturbance and continuing social impairment. Another third had improved appreciably and were affected by neurotic symptoms rather than social impairment. The remaining third had improved substantially or completely. School attendance difficulties had remained in about half of all cases. Subsequent difficulties in going to work were less pronounced. The best predictor of outcome was clinical state on discharge. High intelligence also emerged as a significant predictor of poor outcome. Five girls and a boy had already developed severe and persistent agoraphobic difficulties when reviewed. It was found that severe school phobia in early adolescence resembled adult affective disorders in some clinical features and in outcome.

The outcome of adolescent school phobia.

A double-blind randomly controlled trial of one particular laxative, Senokot, used in moderate dosage, was carried out on a group of 40 children with severe and persistent soiling and often with a history of faecal retention. Significant improvement occurred following three months of outpatient treatment using a behavioural approach and either Senokot, placebo or no medication. However, there was no evidence either during the trial or subsequently when Senokot was employed to supplement behavioural treatment in every child who continued with therapy that this laxative contributed in any way to relieving the problem in this group of cases.

Ian Berg

Papers

School phobia—its classification and relationship to dependency

School phobia in the children of agoraphobic women.

School phobia and agoraphobia

The outcome of adolescent school phobia.

A controlled trial of ‘senokot’ in faecal soiling treated by behavioural methods