Abstract
Background
Clinical practice guidelines for the evaluation of children with suspected hyperkinetic disorder or ADHD recommend that information is collected from teachers.
Methods
Using the development and well-being assessment, parents of 5–16 year olds participating in the 1999 and 2004 British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Surveys were asked about symptoms relating to hyperkinetic disorder and reports of teacher complaints about these symptoms. We examined whether parental reports about symptoms at school reflect teacher ratings and can be relied upon by clinicians.
Results
Parent reports about symptoms at school were moderately correlated with teacher ratings. If children potentially met criteria for hyperkinetic disorder based on parental ratings only, the positive predictive value (PPV) for a research diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder was 47%. When parents reported high levels of symptoms at school in addition to sufficient parent-rated symptoms and impairment, the PPV for a diagnosis of hyperkinetic disorder increased to 59%.
Conclusions
In a community sample, we found that parental reports about symptoms at school have limited utility in predicting teacher ratings. Our findings highlight that it is desirable and worthwhile for clinicians to obtain direct information from the teacher. If this is unavailable, clinicians and researchers should be aware that “second-hand” information about symptoms at school is second best.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2007) Practice parameter for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 46:894–921
Biederman J, Keenan K, Faraone SV (1990) Parent-based diagnosis of attention deficit disorder predicts a diagnosis based on teacher report. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 29:698–701
Biederman J, Faraone SV, Milberger S, Doyle A (1993) Diagnoses of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder from parent reports predict diagnoses based on teacher reports. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 32:315–317
Biederman J, Faraone SV, Monuteaux MC, Grossbard JR (2004) How informative are parent reports of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms for assessing outcome in clinical trials of long-acting treatments? A pooled analysis of parents’ and teachers’ reports. Pediatrics 113:1667–1671
de Nijs PF, Ferdinand RF, de Bruin EI, Dekker MC, van Duijn CM, Verhulst FC (2004) Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): parents’ judgment about school, teachers’ judgment about home. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 13:315–320
Ford T, Goodman R (2005) The Ford Score; a simple measure for predicting the level of emotional and behavioural problems within mainstream school. Emotional Behavioural Difficulties 10:219–233
Ford T, Goodman R, Meltzer H (2003) The British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey 1999: the prevalence of DSM-IV disorders. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 42:1203–1211
Goodman R (1997) The strengths and difficulties questionnaire: a research note. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 38:581–586
Goodman R (2001) Psychometric properties of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 40:1337–1345
Goodman R, Ford T, Richards H, Meltzer H, Gatward R (2000) The development and well-being assessment: description and initial validation of an integrated assessment of child and adolescent psychopathology. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 41:645–655
Green H, McGinnity A, Meltzer H, Ford TJ, Goodman R (2005) Mental health of children and young people, Great Britain 2004. Palgrave MacMillan, London
Meltzer H, Gatward R, Goodman R, Ford T (2000) Mental health of children and adolescents in Great Britain. The Stationery Office, London
Mitsis EM, McKay KE, Schulz KP, Newcorn JH, Halperin JM (2000) Parent-teacher concordance for DSM-IV attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in a clinic-referred sample. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 39:308–313
Rey JM, Sawyer MG (2003) Are psychostimulant drugs being used appropriately to treat child and adolescent disorders? Br J Psychiatry 182:284–286
Santosh PJ, Taylor E, Swanson J, Wigal T, Chuang S, Davies M et al (2005) Refining the diagnoses of inattention and overactivity syndromes: a reanalysis of the Multimodal Treatment study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on ICD-10 criteria for hyperkinetic disorder. Clin Neurosci Res 5:307–314
Sawyer MG, Rey JM, Arney FM, Whitham JN, Clark JJ, Baghurst PA (2004) Use of health and school-based services in Australia by young people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 43:1355–1363
Sayal K, Taylor E (2005) Parent ratings of school behaviour in children at risk of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Acta Psychiatr Scand 111:460–465
Sayal K, Taylor E, Beecham J (2003) Parental perception of problems and mental health service use for hyperactivity. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 42:1410–1414
Sayal K, Goodman R, Ford T (2006) Barriers to the identification of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 47:744–750
Scheffler RM, Hinshaw SP, Modrek S, Levine P (2007) The global market for ADHD medications. Health Aff 26:450–457
Taylor E, Dopfner M, Sergeant J, Asherson P, Banaschewski T, Buitelaar J, Coghill D, Danckaerts M, Rothenberger A, Sonuga-Barke E, Steinhausen HC, Zuddas A (2004) European clinical guidelines for hyperkinetic disorder—first upgrade. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 13(Suppl 1):7–30
Tripp G, Luk SL, Schaughency EA, Singh R (1999) DSM-IV and ICD-10: a comparison of the correlates of ADHD and hyperkinetic disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 38:156–164
Tripp G, Schaughency EA, Clarke B (2006) Parent and teacher rating scales in the evaluation of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: contribution to diagnosis and differential diagnosis in clinically referred children. J Dev Behav Pediatr 27:209–218
Wolraich ML, Lambert EW, Bickman L, Simmons T, Doffing MA, Worley KA (2004) Assessing the impact of parent and teacher agreement on diagnosing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. J Dev Behav Pediatr 25:41–47
World Health Organisation (1992) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and related health problems. WHO, Geneva Tenth Revision
Zeiner P (1997) Parent-reported symptoms of hyperactivity and attention deficits predict teacher-reported symptoms. Acta Paediatr 86:178–182
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sayal, K., Goodman, R. Do parental reports of child hyperkinetic disorder symptoms at school predict teacher ratings?. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 18, 336–344 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-009-0735-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-009-0735-y