Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

SPARCS Cohort 7

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)*is a brief screening questionnaire used to assess positive and negative psychological attributes of children and adolescents. For SPARCS, the child/adolescent self-report version of the SDQ is completed by the client. Domains assessed include emotional problems, conduct, hyperactivity, peer problems, impact of problems, prosocial skills, and overall difficulties. Statistical analyses of data are presented below. Of note, data from 47 clients were dropped for analyses due to the clinician indicating concern about the validity of the data due to observations of participant behavior or response patterns during the assessment.

Descriptive Statistics: Pre- and post-treatment assessment measure means, standard deviations, and standard errors for each subscale of the SDQ are listed in the table below, as well as the range of possible scores and clinically significant range for each subscale.

SDQ Subscales: Descriptive Statistics

Repeated Measures: Repeated measures analyses (paired samples t-tests) were conducted to examine pre-post group mean differences on SDQ subscales and total difficulties scores. Analyses showed statistically significant improvement in the Conduct Problems subscale.

SDQ Subscales: Paired Sample t-tests

SDQ Subscales: Pre-post Treatment Mean Scores

SDQ Total Difficulties Scores: Pre-post Treatment Mean Scores

Individual Clinically-Significant Change:

At pre-treatment, 93 group participants had pre-treatment SDQ Total Difficulties scores in the clinically significant range (≥ 18). Of note, 71 participants were missing post-treatment data for the SDQ Total Difficulties scale. Analysis of the participants with post-treatment data showed that the SDQ Total Difficulties scores for 9 of these 22 group members (41%) decreased to non-clinically significant levels at the end of the SPARCS groups.

For SDQ problem subscales, there were 75, 40, 68, 78, and 106 clients, respectively, with pre-treatment SDQ Emotional Symptoms, Conduct Problems, Hyperactivity Symptoms, Peer Problems, and Impact scores at or above the clinical cut-off score (see descriptive table above for each subscale cut-off score). Of note, 56, 34, 49, 64, and 77 participants, respectively, were missing post-treatment data for the SDQ Emotional Symptoms, Conduct Problems, Hyperactivity Symptoms, Peer Problems, and Impact scales. Of the participants with post-treatment data, there were 9 of 19 (47%), 3 of 6 (50%), 11 of 19 (58%), 5 of 14 (36%), and 7 of 29 (24%), respectively, with SDQ Emotional Symptoms, Conduct Problems, Hyperactivity Symptoms, Peer Problems, and Impact scores that decreased to non-clinically significant levels at post-treatment. For the SDQ Prosocial subscale, there were 29 clients with pre-treatment scores at or below the clinical cut-off score of 5. Of note, 23 participants were missing post-treatment data for the SDQ Prosocial subscale. Analysis of the participants with post-treatment data showed that the SDQ Prosocial subscale scores for 4 of these 6 group members (67%) increased to non-clinically significant levels at post-treatment.