The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the Nordic countries

• Published in: European child & adolescent psychiatry Vol. 13 Suppl 2; no. S2; pp. II32 - 39
• Main Authors: Obel, Carsten, Heiervang, Einar, Rodriguez, Alina, Heyerdahl, Sonja, Smedje, Hans, Sourander, André, Guethmundsson, Olafur O, Clench-Aas, Jocelyne, Christensen, Else, Heian, Frode, Mathiesen, Kristin S, Magnússon, Páll, Njarethvík, Urethur, Koskelainen, Merja, Rønning, John A, Stormark, Kjell Morten, Olsen, Jørn
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Nature B.V 01.01.2004
• Subjects: Adolescent; Behaviour; Child; Child & adolescent mental health; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Children; Culture; Epidemiology; Faculty; Female; Humans; Language; Male; Mental Disorders - diagnosis; Mental Disorders - epidemiology; Observer Variation; Parents; Quantitative psychology; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Scandinavia; Scandinavian and Nordic Countries - epidemiology; Screening; Standard deviation; Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; Surveys and Questionnaires; Scandinavian and Nordic Countries; Denmark; Sweden; Norway; Aarhus Denmark; Finland
• ISSN: 1018-8827; 1435-165X
• DOI: 10.1007/s00787-004-2006-2

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) has been translated into the different Nordic languages between 1996 and 2003. During the past few years, SDQs have been completed for nearly 100,000 children and adolescents in population-based studies as well as in clinical samples. The largest studies have been performed in Norway and Denmark, and in these countries the diagnostic interview DAWBA has also been used in conjunction with the SDQ. In addition to a brief overview of past and ongoing SDQ work in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, we present scale means and standard deviations from selected community studies with comparable age groups, including parental reports for 7, 9 and 11 year-old children and self-reports of 13 and 15 year-olds. The descriptive statistics suggest that the distributions of SDQ scores are very similar across the Nordic countries. Further collaborative efforts in establishing norms and evaluating the validity of the SDQ as a screening instrument are encouraged.