National Norms and Differential Item Functioning Tests of the Parent-Report MFQ for Children Ages 5-12.

Abstract

The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ) is a widely used screening tool for childhood depression, but existing cutoff scores have been derived primarily from older or clinically referred samples of youth. Less is known about score distributions and percentiles in nationally representative samples of younger children. The present study established parent-report MFQ norms and evaluated item characteristics and Differential Item Functioning (DIF) across parent race/ethnicity, and parent and child sex, in a large, population-based sample. Data were collected in February 2024 from 1,000 U.S. parents of children ages 5-12. Parents completed demographic measures and the 34-item long-form MFQ. Item response theory (IRT) analyses evaluated unidimensionality, item discrimination, and DIF across the three largest racial/ethnic groups (White, Black, Latine) and across parent and child sex. Percentile ranks and 95% confidence intervals were generated for MFQ raw total scores. Results supported unidimensionality and good model fit. All items demonstrated adequate to strong discrimination, and no items showed meaningful DIF across subgroups. Percentile norms indicated that a raw score of 15 corresponded to the 85th percentile, providing a developmentally appropriate cutoff for younger children in community samples. These findings augment the evidence base for the MFQ by providing nationally representative norms for younger children, with practical implications for clinical interpretation of total scale scores.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10862-026-10300-9.