INTEGRATING ASSESSMENT DATA FROM MULTIPLE INFORMANTS

To examine the consequences for measurement of child psychiatric disor der (conduct and oppositional disorders) of not integrating the data o n the same individual from different informants compared with integrat ing the information from parents and teachers, using these different s trategies. Method: Data for the study came from problem checklist asse ssments done by parents and teachers of children aged 6 to 16 years (N = 1, 134) selected with known probability from a general population s ample and from structured interviews obtained in a stratified random s ubsample (n = 251). Results: As expected, parent-teacher agreement was low. The pattern of associated features of disorder was found to vary markedly in parent-identified compared with teacher-identified disord er. Furthermore, combining informants had the disadvantage of masking the distinctive patterns of associated features noted in informant-spe cific disorders. Finally, by teaching disorder as informants-specific, the internal properties of the measure are not generally inferior to those obtained by combining informants in various ways. Conclusion: Ch ild psychiatric disorders should be conceptualized as informant-specif ic phenomena.