Parent-youth convergence (and divergence) in reports about pediatric quality of life.

PURPOSE: Researchers and service providers typically assess pediatric Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) by collecting independent reports from parents and youth. An emerging body of work indicates that patterns of parent-youth reports yield information germane to understanding youth outcomes. We identified patterns of HRQOL among youth and their parents seeking mental health treatment and examined links between agreement patterns and mental and physical health functioning. METHODS: Participants included 227 youth (mean age = 14.40 years, SD = 2.42; 63% female) and parent dyads presenting at a mood disorders clinic between 2013 and 2020. We assessed HRQOL using parallel youth and parent forms of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Generic Core Scales. We also assessed youth clinical correlates of depression, suicidal ideation, and impairment, as well as health information via electronic health record (e.g., psychotropic medication usage, BMI). RESULTS: Latent class analysis showed three parent-youth reporting patterns: Low-Low (LL), High-High (HH), and Parent Low-Youth High (PL-YH). Relative to youth in the HH group, youth in the LL and PL-YH groups reported significantly greater depressive symptoms and had higher rates of suicidal ideation and psychotropic medication use. In addition, youth in the LL group reported significantly greater levels of impairment. CONCLUSIONS: Parent-youth patterns of HRQOL reporting can reveal clinically meaningful information and indicate poorer functioning for certain groups (LL, PL-YH) of youth. These findings have implications for improving accuracy of risk assessments that leverage HRQOL data.

The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale: Associations between interrupted, aborted, and actual suicide attempts among adolescent inpatients.

The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale divides suicide attempt behaviors into actual, interrupted, and aborted attempts, but limited data have been reported regarding associations between interrupted, aborted, and actual attempts. This study provided initial data on the ability of interrupted and aborted attempts to estimate the frequency of actual suicide attempts. Participants were adolescent psychiatric inpatients (59.9% female), 12-17 years (mean = 14.73, SD = 1.62). Results suggest that interrupted and aborted suicide attempts are associated with the frequency of actual suicide attempts, controlling for suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms. Future research should evaluate whether interrupted and aborted attempts prospectively predicting actual suicide attempts.