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Investigating the Measurement Invariance and Method-Trait Effects of Parent and Teacher SNAP-IV Ratings of Preschool Children

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Abstract

The Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham scale version IV (SNAP-IV) is widely used to assess symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in children and adolescents. Nevertheless, there is insufficient data to support its use in preschool children. The study had three goals: First, to test the factorial validity of the three correlated-factors model of ADHD and ODD items of the SNAP-IV. Second, to investigate the measurement invariance of the items over time (6-month longitudinal interval) and by sex. Third, to investigate the convergent validity and method-specific influences on ADHD/ODD assessments with respect to multiple raters (parents/teachers) of children’s symptoms. Participants were 618 preschool children (3.5–6 years) at baseline and 6-month follow-up. For model testing, we used confirmatory factor analysis for categorical observed variables. Method and trait effects were examined using the CT-C(M-1) model. The analyses showed partial measurement invariance over time and according to sex. Moreover, strong rater-specific effects were detected. The implication of the results for construct validation of the instrument and clinical assessment of ADHD and ODD traits are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The parcels of the different rater groups differ in the items that were assigned to one parcel. This is due to the fact that the parcels were originally created independently for the different rating groups using the item loadings of separate factor analyses for the different rater groups. A reviewer asked the question whether this difference in the parcels might question the validity of the conclusions about convergent validity. Therefore, in all analyses were redone using the same parcels across raters. The majority of the results for parcels containing identical items differed in the second decimal value, what do not change the interpretability of our results (data upon request).

  2. The mean difference refers to the standardized solution, in which the factor variances equal 1. It expresses the mean differences in proportions of a standard deviation. It should not be interpreted as Cohen’s d, which is based on a latent difference model in which the mean differences are divided by the standard deviation of the difference variable. Because we do not analyze a latent difference model, we used this other form of standardization which is automatically provided by Mplus.

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Funding

This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de São Paulo (FAPESP) [Grant Numbers 12/51624-1].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Psicologia e Psicanálise, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid, PR 445, km 380, Campus Univeristário, Londrina, PR, CEP 86.057-970, Brazil

    Patrícia Silva Lúcio

  2. Psychology and Educational Sciences, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Michael Eid

  3. School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

    Hugo Cogo-Moreira

  4. Department of Communication Sciences, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Marina Leite Puglisi

  5. Faculdade de Medicina FMUSP, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Guilherme V. Polanczyk

Authors
  1. Patrícia Silva Lúcio
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  2. Michael Eid
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  3. Hugo Cogo-Moreira
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  4. Marina Leite Puglisi
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  5. Guilherme V. Polanczyk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patrícia Silva Lúcio.

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Conflict of interest

This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier NCT02807831). In the past 3 years, Guilherme V. Polanczyk has been active as a consultant, member of advisory board, and/or speaker for Shire/Takeda, Medice, Ache and Novo Nordisk. He received travel expenses for continuing education support from Shire/Takeda and royalties from Editora Manole. The other authors declare no conflict of interests.

Ethical Approval

The present study received approval by the ethical committee on human experimentation (Protocol Number 171.933/2012). In accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, parents gave written consent for children’s participation.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

For the parent ratings, the following additional loadings are suggested: Item 15 should be loaded on the ATT factor (MI = 14.571, SEPC = − 0.400), item 3 on the HI factor (MI = 14.672, SEPC = 0.326), and item 1 on the ODD factor (MI = 10.670, SEPC = − 0.282). For the teacher ratings: Item 10 (MI = 31.600, SEPC = 0.291), item 16 (MI = 27.910, SEPC = − 0.313), item 20 (MI = 10.707, SEPC = − 0.198), and item 22 (MI = 11.336, SEPC = 0.164) should be loaded on the ATT factor; item 1 (MI = 12.805, SEPC = − 0.183), item 5 (MI = 13.346, SEPC = − 0.211), item 8 (MI = 11.363, SEPC = 0.186), item 22 (MI = 18.994, SEPC = 0.355), and item 25 (MI = 11.621, SEPC = 0.331) on the HI factor; and item 1 (MI = 11.698, SEPC = − 0.166), item 5 (MI = 11.008, SEPC = − 0.178), and item 18 (MI = 12.791, SEPC = 0.290) on the ODD factor.

Appendix 2

Estimated factor loadings and their respective standard errors for the baseline assessment

Domains

Items

Parents

Teachers

Estimate

SE

Estimate

SE

 

Item 1

0.542

0.038

0.932

0.007

 

Item 2

0.680

0.043

0.949

0.010

 

Item 3

0.541

0.048

0.907

0.018

ATT

Item 4

0.666

0.035

0.921

0.016

 

Item 5

0.652

0.028

0.909

0.017

 

Item 6

0.422

0.045

0.830

0.030

 

Item 7

0.455

0.054

0.861

0.024

 

Item 8

0.595

0.053

0.914

0.021

 

Item 9

0.642

0.040

0.897

0.018

 

Item 10

0.631

0.027

0.916

0.013

 

Item 11

0.676

0.036

0.936

0.010

 

Item 12

0.603

0.035

0.939

0.010

HI

Item 13

0.528

0.037

0.932

0.013

 

Item 14

0.643

0.033

0.975

0.006

 

Item 15

0.443

0.049

0.896

0.014

 

Item 16

0.446

0.042

0.843

0.025

 

Item 17

0.713

0.026

0.926

0.016

 

Item 18

0.652

0.032

0.924

0.014

 

Item 19

0.682

0.032

0.911

0.018

 

Item 20

0.637

0.024

0.910

0.014

 

Item 21

0.777

0.028

0.939

0.013

 

Item 22

0.655

0.032

0.968

0.009

ODD

Item 23

0.418

0.037

0.865

0.030

 

Item 24

0.404

0.052

0.760

0.036

 

Item 25

0.547

0.045

0.850

0.024

 

Item 26

0.682

0.049

0.888

0.022

Appendix 3

Factor correlations (IN, HI, and ODD) across parents and teachers at time 1 and time 2 (diagonals are variances)

Time/Rater

Trait

Pre-test

Post-test

ATT

HI

ODD

ATT

HI

ODD

Teachers

Pre-test

ATT

6.996

     

HI

0.664

18.341

    

ODD

0.569

0.816

8.045

   

Post-test

ATT

0.768

0.424

0.376

8.137

  

HI

0.586

0.752

0.69

0.693

15.152

 

ODD

0.527

0.702

0.828

0.564

0.848

8.397

Parents

Pre-test

ATT

0.869

     

HI

0.614

1.000

    

ODD

0.551

0.659

1.489

   

Post-test

ATT

0.612

0.575

0.471

1.003

  

HI

0.410

0.685

0.478

0.645

1.328

 

ODD

0.427

0.554

0.67

0.602

0.733

1.842

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Lúcio, P.S., Eid, M., Cogo-Moreira, H. et al. Investigating the Measurement Invariance and Method-Trait Effects of Parent and Teacher SNAP-IV Ratings of Preschool Children. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 53, 489–501 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01145-2

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