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The Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) is an example of the efforts to integrate categorical and dimensional assessment methods. The latest editions of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Youth Self-Report (YSR) included the DSM-Oriented Scales, constructed in rational manner based on the items making up these inventories. Objective: To analyze the psychometric properties of the DSM-Oriented Scales of the CBCL and YSR. Method: A clinical sample of 420 children and adolescents (aged 8-17 years) was assessed with the CBCL and YSR, with a structured diagnostic interview and with measures of functional impairment to study the reliability and validity of the DSM-Oriented Scales. Results: Internal consistency ranged from moderate to good for all the scales except the DSM-Anxiety Problems Scale. Agreement between parents and children ranged between moderate and low values. Kappa coefficients showed moderate agreement in the different symptoms. The DSM-Oriented Scales presented acceptable diagnostic power for DSM-IV disorders and a significant relationship with measures of functional impairment. Conclusion: The DSM-Oriented Scales constitute a useful approach from the dimensional model to the DSM-IV disorders in Spanish clinical population.

AbstractCallous Unemotional (CU) traits are associated with different environmental risk factors, such as negative stressful life events (SLE). The most common studied SLE associated with CU trait has been childhood maltreatment, but less is known about how other SLE impact the development of CU traits. Therefore, this work examines risk factors, personal factors (executive functioning), and mental health outcomes associated with the trajectories of Callous Unemotional (CU) traits and Stressful Life Events (SLE) in a community sample of children. A cohort of 377 preschoolers were followed up between ages 3 and 10. Several risk factors and outcomes for three trajectory groups (high CU/SLE; high CU/low SLE; and the reference group with low CU/SLE) were analyzed by using multiple post-hoc comparisons. We hypothesized that children with high CU/SLE would face more contextual risk factors, more executive functioning difficulties and more mental health problems than children with high CU/low SLE or the reference group. At the age of 3, children who showed high CU/SLE faced more early contextual adversity, including socioeconomic difficulties and maternal antisocial behavior than the other groups of children. At the age of 10, children with high CU/SLE presented more peer problems and higher psychopathology symptoms than the reference group, but no differences on mental health outcomes in comparison to the high CU/low SLE group. These results have potential implications for clinical practice and studies attempting to identify different CU subtypes in children.

This work addresses methodological and conceptual issues related to the translation of the DSM‐IV diagnoses from verbal language into formal language through computerized algorithms, with the aim of guaranteeing its quality. A great number of biases can affect this process, so the main difficulties connected with each phase are outlined, proposals to standardize the process are advanced, and practical solutions to avoid errors in the formal diagnostic definitions are presented. The steps followed are: (a) classification of the disorders in seven different groups depending on the diagnostic structure they have in the taxonomy; (b) the creation of macros in SPSS and SAS languages that express formally the structures/groups identified; (c) elaboration of 162 macro calls, specifying formally all the particular diagnostic conditions for each DSM‐IV disorder; and (d) checking the correct functioning of the formal definitions proposed in a test data file (that has also been created in this work). Moreover, because the standardization of the process that creates the diagnoses in programming language requires the homogenization of the variable names and the codification formats, we have produced a proposal compatible with the verbal language for identifying, through letters and numbers, all the DSM‐IV criteria. The main contribution of this work consists of facilitating computerized and universal algorithms for obtaining automatically any DSM‐IV diagnosis in three categories (present, absent and not evaluable due to the lack of information) starting from a vector that includes all the criteria for that disorder. This study will also contribute to endowing the classification system most used in psychopathology (DSM‐IV) with greater methodological rigour. Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

Correlates of child psychopathology were studied in a community sample of 210 children and adolescents (with equal numbers of boys and girls). Children suffering from a psychiatric disorder had more temperamental difficulties and their parents showed a higher level of psychopathology than those without a disorder. Furthermore, a regression analysis revealed that difficult temperamental traits in the child and the parents' attitudes toward the child were primary predictors of psychiatric disorders in the child. The relationship between the parent and child as well as the environment-temperament impact on child, psychopathology are discussed.

The Peer Nomination Inventory of Depression (PNID) was answered by 1,121 children from Barcelona in the fourth year of grammar school and by their teachers (n=36) to analyze this questionnaire in a Spanish sample. The results indicated (1) high internal consistency; (2) discriminative power between depressed and nondepressed; (3) low concurrent validity; (4) convergent and discriminant validity; (5) a two-factor structure; and (6) that two discriminant functions could differentiate between depressed, dysthymic, and nondepressed subjects. The teacher's responses showed (1) moderate internal consistency; (2) discriminative power between depressed and nondepressed groups; (3) moderate concurrent validity; (4) and that two discriminant functions could differentiate between the diagnostic groups. The importance of the information given by the teacher to help detect severe depressive problems was pointed out.