MULTIPLE SOURCES IN CHILD DIAGNOSIS - PARENT-CHILD CONCORDANCE IN AFFECTIVELY ILL AND WELL FAMILIES

Examined parent-child and mother-father agreement on child disruptive, mood, and anxiety disorders as assessed by structured psychiatric int erview. As part of a large longitudinal project on affectively ill and well families, assessments were conducted for two siblings (ages 8 to 11 and 12 to 16). The findings underscore the importance of taking in to account age and sex of child, parental affective illness, and sex o f parent in comparing child assessments from multiple sources. For exa mple, both mother-child and mother-father agreement were higher in the preadolescent than in the adolescent group. Whereas preadolescent chi ldren in all maternal diagnostic groups reported presence of problems at similar rates, control mothers were far less likely to report child problems than either unipolar or bipolar mothers. Fathers, whose psyc hiatric statuses were known, were used as criterion raters to test the possibility of distorted reporting by depressed mothers. There was gr eater mother-child and mother-father agreement in families with an aff ectively ill mother and well father than in families with both parents well. Thus, maternal depression, although an important variable in mo ther report, should not be assumed to be a distorting factor.