Abstract
The Child Behavior Checklist's applicability to a Hispanic sample was assessed by an examination of the instrument's internal consistency and concurrent validity. The CBCL and TRF were administered to a community sample representative of children of Puerto Rico aged 4 to 16. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the internal consistency of empirically derived scales. The relation of CBCL and TRF scores to clinical diagnosis, adaptive functioning, and need for services served as indicators of the concurrent validity of the instrument's Spanish version. The results indicate that the total behavior problem scores on the instruments are good continuous measures of maladjustment for children in Puerto Rico. A child with high values on the scales has a high probability of being classified as a case by a psychiatrist. High levels of internal consistency were found in most subscales. Only scales comprising low prevalence problems showed poor internal consistency.
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This research was supported by grant MH 38821 from the National Institute of Mental Health. This paper was presented at the Academy of Child Psychiatric Meetings, Washington, D.C., October 1987. The authors would like to acknowledge Thomás Achenbach for his careful review of this manuscript and his useful comments, our data analyst Tomas D. Matos of the University of Puerto Rico, and the guidance provided by our consultant David Shaffer from Columbia University.
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Rubio-Stipec, M., Bird, H., Canino, G. et al. The internal consistency and concurrent validity of a Spanish translation of the Child Behavior Checklist. J Abnorm Child Psychol 18, 393–406 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00917642
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00917642