Testing Syndromes of Psychopathology in Parent and Youth Ratings Across Societies.

As societies become increasingly diverse, mental health professionals need instruments for assessing emotional, behavioral, and social problems in terms of constructs that are supported within and across societies. Building on decades of research findings, multisample alignment confirmatory factor analyses tested an empirically based 8-syndrome model on parent ratings across 30 societies and youth self-ratings across 19 societies. The Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 6-18 and Youth Self-Report for Ages 11-18 were used to measure syndromes descriptively designated as Anxious/Depressed, Withdrawn/Depressed, Somatic Complaints, Social Problems, Thought Problems, Attention Problems, Rule-Breaking Behavior, and Aggressive Behavior. For both parent ratings (N = 61,703) and self-ratings (N = 29,486), results supported aggregation of problem items into 8 first-order syndromes for all societies (configural invariance), plus the invariance of item loadings (metric invariance) across the majority of societies. Supported across many societies in both parent and self-ratings, the 8 syndromes offer a parsimonious phenotypic taxonomy with clearly operationalized assessment criteria. Mental health professionals in many societies can use the 8 syndromes to assess children and youths for clinical, training, and scientific purposes.

Impact of a multidisciplinary evaluation in pediatric patients with nocturnal monosymptomatic enuresis.

BACKGROUND: Enuresis (NE) is a clinical condition of multifactorial etiology that leads to difficulties in child/adolescent social interaction. METHODS: This was a prospective study on the impact of multidisciplinary assessment of 6- to 17-year-old patients with monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (MNE), including a structured history, clinical/neurological examination, bladder and bowel diaries, sleep diary and questionnaires, psychological evaluation [Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and PedsQL 4.0 questionnaires], urinary sonography, blood and urine laboratory tests, polysonography (PSG), and balance evaluation. RESULTS: A total of 140 enuretic participants were evaluated, of whom 27 were diagnosed with NE complicated by urinary disorder, four with hypercalciuria, three with nephropathy and one with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Among the 87 participants who underwent PSG, six were diagnosed with severe apnea. Of the 82 MNE patients who underwent full assessment, 62 were male (75.6 %), and the mean age was 9.5 (±2.6) years. A family history of NE was diagnosed in 91.1 % of first- and second-degree relatives, constipation in 89.3 % and mild/moderate apnea in 40.7 %. Balance control alteration was identified by physical therapy evaluation of MNE patients. Participants' quality of life evaluation scores were significantly lower than those of their parents. CONCLUSION: Enuresis is a multifactorial disorder that requires a structured diagnostic approach.