Citation

Bird HR, Davies M, Canino G, Loeber R, Rubio-Stipec M, Shen S. J. Child Fam. Stud. 2005; 14(3): 325-341.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10826-005-6846-2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Antisocial behaviors were systematically classified along a hierarchy of seriousness or severity that also accounted for frequency of occurrence and heterogeneity of behaviors. Items from the CD and ODD schedules of the NIMH DISC-IV and from the Elliot Delinquency Scales were listed at specified frequencies. Nine mental health clinicians rated the level of seriousness of each alternative on a scale from 0 (trivial) to 5 (very serious). Reliability of the ratings was assessed. Over two thirds of the items showed excellent agreement among the raters, 8% showed poor agreement and 21% showed fair to moderate agreement. The overall reliability of a single rater's score was 0.56 and the reliability of the average was 0.84. The classification meets high psychometric standards for reliability and has face validity. The final output provides a classification along a spectrum that takes into account severity, frequency of occurrence during the previous year, and presence of multiple behaviors. It is useful for classification purposes and for longitudinal tracking of antisocial behavior.