Abstract
BACKGROUND: Given the role of childhood aggressive behavior (AGG) in everyday child development, precise and accurate measurement is critical in clinical practice and research. This study aims to quantify agreement among widely used measures of childhood AGG regarding item content, clinical concordance, correlation, and underlying genetic construct.
METHODS: We analyzed data from 1254 Dutch twin pairs (age 8-10 years, 51.1% boys) from a general population sample for whom both parents completed the A-TAC, CBCL, and SDQ at the same occasion.
RESULTS: There was substantial variation in item content among AGG measures, ranging from .00 (i.e., mutually exclusive) to .50 (moderate agreement). Clinical concordance (i.e., do the same children score above a clinical threshold among AGG measures) was very weak to moderate with estimates ranging between .01 and .43 for mother-reports and between .12 and .42 for father-reports. Correlations among scales were weak to strong, ranging from .32 to .70 for mother-reports and from .32 to .64 for father-reports. We found weak to very strong genetic correlations among the measures, with estimates between .65 and .84 for mother-reports and between .30 and .87 for father-reports.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated that degree of agreement between measures of AGG depends on the type (i.e., item content, clinical concordance, correlation, genetic correlation) of agreement considered. Because agreement was higher for correlations compared to clinical concordance (i.e., above or below a clinical cutoff), we propose the use of continuous scores to assess AGG, especially for combining data with different measures. Although item content can be different and agreement among observed measures may not be high, the genetic correlations indicate that the underlying genetic liability for childhood AGG is consistent across measures.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1328-1338 |
Journal | Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry |
Volume | 61 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2020 |
Bibliographical note
© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.Funding
This work was supported by the ‘Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene‐environment interplay to inform Treatment and Intervention strategies’ project (ACTION). ACTION receives funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007‐ 2013) under grant agreement no 602768. The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest. Key points This work was supported by the ?Aggression in Children: Unraveling gene-environment interplay to inform Treatment and Intervention strategies? project (ACTION). ACTION receives funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007- 2013) under grant agreement no 602768. The authors have declared that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.Key points For interpretation of prior research findings and future collaboration projects, it is important to gauge convergence between different measures for childhood aggressive behavior. Results reveal great variation in item content. Agreement in clinical scores among measures is weak; correlations are moderate to strong. Despite differences, genetic overlap is strong, suggesting that different measures for childhood aggressive assess a similar genetic construct. Higher agreement among continuous scores suggests that decisions regarding referral for treatment or inclusion/exclusion for research are more robust among measures when using a continuous score instead of an indication based on a cutoff. Agreement between measures of childhood aggressive behavior depends on the metric of agreement (i.e., item content, clinical concordance, correlation, genetic overlap), which needs to be considered in future research. For interpretation of prior research findings and future collaboration projects, it is important to gauge convergence between different measures for childhood aggressive behavior. Results reveal great variation in item content. Agreement in clinical scores among measures is weak; correlations are moderate to strong. Despite differences, genetic overlap is strong, suggesting that different measures for childhood aggressive assess a similar genetic construct. Higher agreement among continuous scores suggests that decisions regarding referral for treatment or inclusion/exclusion for research are more robust among measures when using a continuous score instead of an indication based on a cutoff. Agreement between measures of childhood aggressive behavior depends on the metric of agreement (i.e., item content, clinical concordance, correlation, genetic overlap), which needs to be considered in future research.
Funders | Funder number |
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Seventh Framework Programme | |
Seventh Framework Programme | 602768 |
Cohort Studies
- Netherlands Twin Register (NTR)