[Strengths and difficulties in emotional adjustment of Aymara children from the perspective of children, parents and teachers]

Assessing the factor structure of the Spanish language parent Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in Honduras

With worldwide prevalence rates between 10% and 20%, mental illness in children and adolescents is an issue for which culturally sensitive screening tools are needed. The Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a commonly used measure that has been translated into numerous languages, although some research suggests issues with cross-cultural validity. Only four other studies have tested the Spanish-language SDQ in Latin America. In this study, we aimed to help fill this gap by assessing the factor structure of the parent or teacher version of the Spanish-language SDQ (for children ages 4–17) with 967 parent or other caregiver respondents of primary school-aged children (ages 4 to 17) in the Department of Intibucá, Honduras. When unable to find a good fitting factor model previously identified in the literature, we conducted split sample exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), along with measurement invariance testing with the best fitting EFA-extracted model based on gender for caregiver respondent and child gender. Results showed that while many EFA models had a good fit, CFI and TLI was < .90 for all extracted models when confirmed in the second sample with CFA. We then modified the best fitting extracted three-factor, 24-item model, which dropped item 15, by allowing select item residuals to correlate, increasing CFI and TLI to > .90 for female child gender. This modified three-factor model was partially invariant for configural and scalar models between child genders. Configural and scalar models would not converge for adult genders. Of note, metric models were not produced in Mplus related to items’ cross-loading on more than one factor. These findings suggest that the SDQ Spanish language parent or teacher version may not perform optimally cross-culturally in this area of Honduras. Future research should confirm these findings with other Honduran populations.

Physical and psychosocial development of Mapuche and nonindigenous Chilean toddlers: A modest role of ethnicity

Mapuche represents the largest indigenous group in Chile amounting to nearly 10% of the total population. In a longitudinal cohort of 12,398 children, we analyzed the role of ethnicity in physical and psychosocial development of Mapuche and nonindigenous Chilean toddlers (age 2.5 years), taking into account sociodemographic and caregiver characteristics. As indicated by our univariate analysis, the Mapuche developmental niche was characterized by lower income, lower maternal education, poorer quality of the home environment, longer breastfeeding, and higher parental stress. Physical development showed higher body mass index. Mapuche children showed less externalizing problems. We then analyzed the incremental contribution of ethnicity in a series of hierarchical regressions with the second wave of developmental measurements (age 4.5 years) as outcome variables, showing a significant but modest incremental contribution of ethnicity to the prediction of children's development between 2.5 and 4.5 years of age. Controlling for environmental variables, Mapuche showed less externalizing and internalizing, behavior problems. Socioeconomic status, quality of the home environment, and parenting stress were stronger predictors of socioemotional development than ethnicity per se.

Mental health among children and adolescents: Construct validity, reliability, and parent-adolescent agreement on the 'Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire' in Chile

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a screening tool used to measure psychological functioning among children and adolescents. It has been extensively used worldwide, but its psychometric properties, such as internal structure and reliability, seem to vary across countries. This is the first study exploring the construct validity and reliability of the Spanish version of SDQ among early adolescents (self-reported) and their parents in Latin America. A total of 1,284 early adolescents (9-15 years) and their parents answered the SDQ. We also collected demographic variables. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the latent structure of the SDQ. We also used the multitrait-multimethod analysis to separate the true variance on the constructs from variance resulting from measurement methods (self-report vs. parent report), and evaluated the agreement between adolescents and their parents. We found that the original five-factor model was a good solution and the resulting sub-scales had good internal consistency. We also found that the self-reported and parental versions of SDQ provide different information, which are complementary and provide a better picture of the emotional, social, and conduct problems of adolescents. We have added evidence for the construct validity and reliability of the Spanish self-reported and parental SDQ versions in a Chilean sample.