Parent and child agreement on anxiety disorder symptoms using the DISC predictive scales.

Growing recognition of the negative impact of anxiety disorders in the lives of youth has made their identification an important clinical task. Multiple perspective assessment (e.g., parents, children) is generally considered a preferred method in the assessment of anxiety disorder symptoms, although it has been generally thought that disagreement between parent and youth ratings of the child’s emotions is common. This study examined parent and child reports of the child’s anxiety disorder symptoms using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Predictive Scales (DISC-PS) in a clinic-referred sample of substance using adolescents participating in the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network protocol CTN-0014 (“Brief Strategic Family Therapy for Adolescent Drug Abusers”). Parents and adolescents (N=480) who were referred for substance abuse treatment were screened for anxiety disorder symptoms using the DISC-PS at pretreatment. Results suggest similar (low) levels of agreement between the parent report and child report versions as found with other anxiety symptom and anxiety disorder measures.

Conclusions: This study adds to the existing research on the assessment of anxiety disorder symptoms in both clinically and theoretically important ways. Findings provide data on multi-informant agreement and highlight issues in the use of the DISC-PS to identify anxiety problems in youth.

Related protocols: CTN-0014