Ontario Child Health Study Emotional Behavioural Scales

Key information

Author(s) or developer(s)

Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University

Permission

Free – permission required

Cost details

Information not available at this time.

Contact or ordering information

The Offord Centre for Child Studies
McMaster University
1280 Main St W
Hamilton, ON
L8S 4L8

Website: The OCHS-EBS Scales website

Email: duncanlj@mcmaster.ca

No copy available from the Knowledge Institute. Contact author or publisher.

General information

Author(s) or developer(s)

Information not available at this time.

Date(s) of publication

2019

Version(s)

Parent form for children and adolescents aged 4-17 and a youth form for adolescents aged 12-17.

Domains or categories

Primary: General mental health assessment
Secondary: Other

Construct(s) measured

Generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, major depressive and social phobia disorder symptoms, attention deficit hyperactivity, oppositional defiant and conduct disorders.

Purpose or objective(s)

The measure was designed as a brief, easy to administer, self-completed symptom checklist of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders that are aligned with disorders in the DSM-5 that produces scores that are valid and reliable for both dimensional and categorical use.

Use(s) of information

The measure is designed for epidemiological studies in the general population and screening in clinical studies based on dimensional and categorical use.

Population(s) measured

Children and adolescents ages 4-17 (parent version) and adolescents ages 12-17 (youth version).

Languages

English, Canadian French is being piloted.

Additional information to inform measure use

Other considerations

All items and scales met the psychometric requirements of validity and reliability. Though there was mixed evidence of the reliability and validity of the conduct disorder scale, the authors recommend retaining the scale to represent behaviors that are rare and concerning and to interpret youth-reported conduct disorder with caution.

The OCHS-EBS was developed in whole in Ontario.

Structure and administration

Method(s) of administration

The measure can be self-administered using paper and pencil or computer administration.

Respondent(s)

Adolescent, or parents/caregivers of child/adolescent being assessed.

Number of items

52

Subscales

Externalizing psychiatric disorder symptoms (25 items): Conduct disorder (11 items), opposition defiant disorder (6 items), ADHD (8 items).

Internalizing psychiatric disorder symptoms (27 items): Major depressive disorder (9 items), generalized anxiety disorder (6 items), separation anxiety disorder (7 items), social phobia/social anxiety disorder (5 items).

Response format(s)

Three-point Likert scale from 0 (never or not true) to 2 (often or very true).

Estimated time to administer

7-10 minutes.

Respondent qualification(s)

None.

Training requirements, scoring and interpretation

No training is required to administer the OCHS-EBS scales.

The OCHS-EBS can be scored as a total score, internalizing score, externalizing score and individual disorder scores. To calculate the total score, all 52 items are summed together. To calculate the scale scores for internalizing disorders, externalizing disorders and individual disorders, the items that make up the groupings can be summed together. A scoring tool is available that produces population normed scores based on children and youth in the Ontario general population. Please contact duncanlj@mcmaster.ca to access the scoring tool.

Sample norms, reliability, and validity

_{The norms, reliability and validity statistics included in each measure profile are those reported by the author(s) of the measure. It is important to note that altering, adding or removing questions from a measure voids these reported statistics, possibly making the revised tool unreliable and invalid.}

Sample for development of norms

Population norms based on child/youth age group and child/youth gender come from the 2014 Ontario Child Health Study of 10,802 children and youth, a representative sample of Ontario children and youth.

Reliability

When used dimensionally, the authors reported internal reliability with Cronbach’s α all over 0.7 with the exception of youth-assessed conduct disorder and caregiver-assessed conduct disorder for ages 4-11. The authors reported internal coefficient alphas of 0.62-0.87 for the parent/caregiver report (ages 4-11), 0.8-0.87 for the parent/caregiver report (ages 12-17) and 0.66-0.86 for the youth report (ages 12-17).

The OCHS-EBS demonstrated test-retest reliability with Pearson’s r all over 0.7 with the exception of youth-assessed separation anxiety disorder. The authors reported test-retest Pearson’s r of 0.7-0.78 for the parent/caregiver report (ages 4-11), 0.7-0.87 for the parent/caregiver report (ages 12-17) and 0.66-0.86 for the youth report (ages 12-17).

When used categorically, the authors reported there was no significant differences in test-retest reliability estimates between the OCHS-EBS and a structured standardized diagnostic interview, the MINI-KID-P.

Validity

When used dimensionally, the authors reported evidence of content validity, internal convergent and discriminant validity (with the exception of youth-assessed conduct disorder scale). The authors noted that there were a few internal discriminant validity test failures that reflect the overlap of characteristics among the disorders. In addition, the authors reported evidence of external convergent and discriminant validity with scales of the independent MINI-KID disorder assessments in 81/84 comparisons of individual disorders. Exceptions occurred between disorders that had similar characteristics.

When used categorically, the authors reported evidence that the OCHS-EBS had similar levels of validity as a structured standardized diagnostic interview.

Measures database

MEASURE PROFILE