Agreement Between Two Behavioral Rating Scales in Preschoolers Born Very Preterm.
Marie Camerota, Jessica Bagley, Elisabeth C McGowan and 13 others
PMID 38146850WHAT IT FOUND
In preschoolers born very preterm, parent ratings on BASC and CBCL matched best for attention, hyperactivity, and overall behavior.
They matched less for anxiety, depression, and physical complaints. Use clinical judgment rather than one scale alone.
Key findings
01The two parent-report scales were related across comparable behavior areas, but agreement varied: subscale scores ranged from r = .40 to .72, and composite scores ranged from r = .61 to .80.
02Using each scale's cutoff for concern, classification agreement was low overall (kappa range .11 to .70), with stronger agreement for hyperactivity paired with ADHD or attention, externalizing, and total problems scores (kappa .50 to .70).
03The weakest correspondence was for anxiety, depression, and physical complaints, with correlations of r = .40 to .41.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 73 children from one hospital site were included, because that was the only NOVI site that gave both scales at age 4. The included sample differed from the larger NOVI cohort: mothers were more likely to identify as White (57% vs 42%) and to have less than a high school degree (22% vs 13%), and more infants had BPD (63% vs 51%). There was no clinical diagnosis or external criterion to tell which scale was more accurate. The study did not account for parent or child language skills, which could affect how parents rate behavior, and very preterm children are at higher risk of language delays. Some subscales could not be compared because the two scales did not measure them in the same way.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the BASC and CBCL as interchangeable for every behavior area. They agreed best for attention, hyperactivity, and total problems, but agreed weakly for anxiety, depression, and physical complaints, and the CBCL often produced higher scores than the BASC.