Characterizing Youth-Caregiver Concordance and Discrepancies in Psychopathology Symptoms in a US Community Sample.
Rose Mary Xavier, Monica E Calkins, Dani S Bassett and 4 others
PMID 35839118WHAT IT FOUND
Youth and caregivers often disagree about psychiatric symptoms, especially in psychosis spectrum.
Black and low-SES youth showed larger disagreements. Collect both reports separately and treat disagreement as information, not error.
Key findings
01Youth-caregiver agreement scores ranged from 0.12 to 0.41 for domains and 0.03 to 0.74 for items.
02Youth and caregiver symptom networks differed significantly in structure and global connectivity.
03Absolute discrepancy scores were higher than average for Black youth and low-SES youth.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was community-based, so findings may not apply to youth already in clinical care. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show how discrepancies change over time or predict future illness. Difference scores were based on symptoms consistently reported by both informants, not all diagnostic criteria for each domain. The study did not examine discrepancies by specific psychiatric diagnosis. Network analysis shows associations only and cannot determine causes or mechanisms of discrepancy. The Other racial group was heterogeneous, so cultural explanations for discrepancies in that group were not inferred.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use youth-caregiver disagreement to decide which report is true or to diagnose psychosis. The study is cross-sectional and only shows associations, so it cannot determine why reports differ or which informant is more accurate.