Parental mental health and reporting of their child's behaviour: measurement invariance of the French version of the parental strengths and difficulties questionnaire.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry
; 33(9): 3263-3272, 2024 Sep.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38402376
ABSTRACT
Symptomatic effects of mental disorders in parents could bias their reporting on their child's mental health. This study aimed to investigate the measurement invariance of the French version of the parental Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) across parental mental health in a sample (N = 20,765) of parents of children aged 3 to 17 years in France. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM) were used to evaluate the fit of three known alternative SDQ factor structures (five, three, or second-order factor structures). Invariance was tested across parental mental health (present anxiety and depressive symptoms, psychiatric history) and across socio-demographic characteristics (child's age, child's gender, parent's gender, parent's educational level). CFA models showed a poor fit, while all ESEM models achieved acceptable or good fit, with the five-factor model presenting the best fit. Invariance was observed for all characteristics tested, indicating that the SDQ can be used to study the links between parental mental health and their child's mental health without bias. However, ESEM showed that the hyperactivity/inattention and conduct problems dimensions were not well differentiated in the French version of the SDQ.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Parents
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
En
Journal:
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry
Journal subject:
PEDIATRIA
/
PSIQUIATRIA
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
France
Country of publication:
Germany