Abstract

The emotional and behavioural problems of 7- to 15-year-old Finnish children and adolescents (N=735) were assessed in a community population by a brief screening instrument, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The parent-, teacher- and self-reports of the SDQ were obtained. The results show that the inter-rater reliability between the pairs of reports was 0.38 - 0.44. The internal consistency in all three questionnaires was 0.71. Functioning above the 90th percentile of the SDQ total difficulties scores in parent-, teacher- and self-reports was strongly associated with help-seeking variables and problematic behaviour according to parents. The correlation of the parental SDQ total scores and the Child Behavior Checklist total scores was 0.75 and the correlation of the self-report SDQ with the Youth Self Report was 0.71. The differences in sex, grade and informants of the SDQ total difficulties scores are reported. The study gives further evidence of the usefulness of the SDQ as a promising screening instrument for epidemiological research and clinical purposes.