Frans Luteijn

The children's social behavior questionnaire for milder variants of PDD problems: Evaluation of the psychometric characteristics

The Childrens Social Behavior Questionnaire (CSBQ) contains items referring to behavior problems seen in children with milder variants of PDD. Data of large samples of children diagnosed as having high-functioning autism, PDDNOS, ADHD, and other child-psychiatric disorders were gathered. Besides the CSBQ, parents completed the Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The data provided the basis for scale construction of the CSBQ, a comparison of the CSBQ scales with other instruments and a comparison of groups on scores on the CSBQ. The 5 scales obtained referred to Acting-out behaviors, Social Contact problems, Social Insight problems, Anxious/Rigid behaviors and Stereotypical behaviors. Results show that the CSBQ has good psychometric qualities with respect to both reliability and validity. A comparison of the different groups showed that significant group differences were found on all scales. In general, the autism group received the highest scores, followed by the PDDNOS group and the ADHD group. Exceptions were on the Acting-out scale, where the ADHD group scored highest and on the Social Insight scale, where no significant difference was found between the PDDNOS group and the ADHD group. Implications of the results and suggestions for further research are dicussed.

The concepts of depression, anxiety, and neuroticism in questionnaires

In this study, the relations among depression, anxiety, and neuroticism measured by self‐report questionnaires were investigated. Subjects were 207 psychiatric patients. High correlations were found among self‐report scales purporting to measure depression, anxiety, and neuroticism. Results of a content analysis showed considerable overlap among these scales. A division of items into six content categories did not result in lower correlations compared to the original scales.

Relations Between the Pleasant Events Schedule, Depression, and Other Aspects of Psychopathology

In this article, relations between the Mood Related subscale of the Pleasant Events Schedule (PES), depression, and other psychopathology are studied. One hundred psychiatric inpatients and outpatients had diagnoses of either major, nonmajor. or no depression. All completed the PES, the Beck Depression Inventory, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Dutch Personality Questionnaire. Results showed that the PES correlated negatively with depression as well as with anxiety and (social) neuroticism. Principal components analysis revealed two factors, negative and positive affect. The latter was dominated by PES scores. Using factor scores, the three diagnostic groups could be meaningfully discriminated. It is concluded that depression may be better described using two affect dimensions rather than one.

The efficacy of the personality diagnostic questionnaire-revised as a diagnostic screening instrument in an anxiety disorder group

The efficacy of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire - Revised (PDQ-R) as a screening instrument was examined in a sample of 137 anxious outpatients. The SCID-II was used as the criterion. The PDQ-R cut-offs were adjusted until the maximum kappa agreement for each scale was reached. The results showed that increasing the cut-offs decreased the number of false-positive diagnoses and only slightly increased the number of false-negative diagnoses. Inclusion of the PDQ-R as a screening instrument, followed by the SCID-II to verify the false-positive diagnoses appears to be a promising method for the categorical assessment of personality disorders. However, more studies are needed, using DSM-IV instruments to determine the optimal cutoffs. The following aspects should be considered as well: (1) the differences in prevalence rates of PDs, (2) the ability of the PDQ-R to differentiate between state and trait phenomena, (3) the consequences of the false-negative diagnoses and (4) the limited validity of the personality disorder definitions. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley Rr Sons, Ltd.