Development of the assessment for emotional and behavioral problems in school-aged children

Abstract

Background

Several assessments have been developed to assess school-aged children’s emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs), but none based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, Text Revision. This study aimed to develop the Assessment for Emotional and Behavioral Problems in School-aged children (AEBPS) fitting current knowledge of mental health disorders.

Materials and methods

This study included 2 phases. In Phase I, the assessment construct and its corresponding items were developed. In Phase II, the reliability and validity of the AEBPS were examined.

Results

The AEBPS contains 120 items in five subscales. The psychometric results showed that the AEBPS subscales had high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83–0.97) and acceptable to good test–retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.65–0.93). The results of exploratory factor analysis showed that most items within each subscale of the AEBPS significantly contributed to their respective concepts. The AEBPS subscales had small to high correlations with the subscales of the Child Behavior Checklist (r = 0.37–0.87). The AEBPS had good discriminant validity to differentiate children with and without EBPs.

Conclusions

The newly-developed AEBPS fits the current knowledge of mental health diagnoses for assessing school-aged children’s EBPs and has sound psychometric evidence. The AEBPS can be reliably and validly used in a variety of settings.