Hello!
A lot of children from the Middle East are comming without parents to Sweden and Germany. A physical Control does as routine by nurses but no mental Control does. I would like to implement SDQ as routine where social workers can use to early detection of mental illness and early reference to Health services. I would like to get in Contact with people that is using it in the field. Thanks for any kind of information, recommendations, etc.
Hi Richard,
I guess you mean the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). I am not expert in this area, but do a lot of work testing the validity of scales/measures. The SDQ is not supposed to be altered, as it is a copyrighted instrument. However, it has many weak points that you might want to keep in mind.
First, the response set only has three levels: Not true, somewhat true, certainly true. While that is much better than a dichotomous set (not true, true), it is not likely sufficient to obtain full information on each item. Psychometricians generally recommend 4-7 point response sets, which need to be confirmed.
Next, published papers on the SDQ show rather weak internal consistency and factor structures. This means the subscales they present (e.g., emotional problems, peer relations) are not likely to be stable. Almost certainly, some items should be deleted, some changed, and perhaps others added. There is also some doubt about the number of valid subscales.
Of great importance, item weighting has never been validated. There is no good reason to believe that all items have equal value for providing information on the construct they are supposed to measure. That relates strongly to the cutoff scores. The cutoff scores were also not determined through a highly valid method.
So, my recommendation would be, if you use the SDQ, use it as a rough indicator. Do not take the cutoff scores too seriously. As always, you will want to use professional judgement in interpreting the test scores.
Good luck!
Thanks Keith for your good comments and suggestions!
My plan is to use the SDQ to early detection of mental illness and early care. In Sweden the social workers regularly meets the new immigrants and no one is controlling their mental Health. In a short way the social worker can see if the kid has or not mental illness. If they detect mental illness they need to do something, some severe mental problems can be avoided if we do early detection and early actions.
It will be later that some other professional should do other tests to find out what to do.
In a study with the aim to promote mental illness in Somali refugee parents and Children we are using SDQ. Please Contact Fatumo Osman (phd student) for more information if you are interested.
Thanks Ulla-Karin!
In one of the 10 districts of the city of Gothenburg are we planning to use SDQ to identify, follow up (every 3 months) and in planning what to do to improve their mental Health and prevent mental illness. I will get in Contact with Fatumo. ThanksAgain!
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