A CROSS-CULTURAL-COMPARISON OF FRENCH AND DUTCH DISTURBED-CHILDREN USING THE CHILD-BEHAVIOR CHECKLIST (CBCL)

Parents, mostly mothers, of French and Dutch children who had been ref erred to Mental Health Services, completed the CBCL to indicate the be haviour problems that their children suffered from. The 85 items which had been found in the USA to measure eight types of disturbed behavio ur, called the cross-informant syndromes, were studied to see if a sim ilar set of dimensions of disturbed behaviour would underlie the Dutch and French CBCL scores. Seven types of disturbance were found which c orresponded to the equivalent cross informant syndromes, but thought p roblems had no similar sort of disorder amongst the Dutch and French c hildren. It was found that only 43 items were necessary to measure the se seven dimensions. It was concluded that despite differences in lang uage, culture and the pattern of mental health services, the CBCL scor es could be used to make meaningful clinical comparisons of psychiatri c disturbances.