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PREDICTION OF OBSERVER RATINGS OF BEHAVIOR AND POST-SURGICAL ADJUSTMENT IN CHILDREN USING TWO SELF-RATING SCALES OF CHILDHOOD DEPRESSION: A VALIDITY STUDY

Sixty-two children, aged 7 through 12, were administered the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and Birleson's self-rating scale for depressive disorder in childhood during the evening of their day of admission to a regional medical center for routine surgical or diagnostic procedures. Their behavior that evening was rated for depressive symptoms by their nurse and a parent. At discharge, their physician rated their psychological and physical adjustment to their hospitalization and treatment, and other data related to adjustment was also obtained from the hospital charts. The validity of the two self-rating scales was assessed by examining their relationships with each other, the observer ratings of behavior, physician ratings of adjustment, and the other indications of adjustment obtained from the charts. The two self-rating scales were found to be correlated at r(,s) = .48 (p = .001). In general, the study failed to find support for the self-report measures being related to any of the other data, and thus failed to support the validity of these two measures. A test of the reliability of children's self-report of depressive symptoms was also done. This involved examining the consistency of the children's responses between eight items of the CDI and eight items of the Birleson which comprised pairs of items similar in content. It was found that the children's self-reports were not consistent, raising serious questions about the use of children's self-reports in assessing depression. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-12, Section: B, page: 4157. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75013
ContributorsOFENLOCH, MARK RANDOLPH., Florida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText
Format77 p.
RightsOn campus use only.
RelationDissertation Abstracts International

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