Register of collateral effects for adolescents (RECA). Description and validity of the instrument.

The evaluation of somatic and side effects symptoms in adolescents is very important in the clinical practice. The manifestation of several somatic sy mptoms associated with different mental disorders is common in this group t hus confusing the clinician in the interpretation of the psychopharmacologi cal side effects. This investigation describes the characteristics of the R ECA and part of its validity process. We evaluated 150 adolescents from whi ch 135 completed the report. The factor analysis discriminated 3 item group s which were named as follows: somatic, gastrointestinal and miscellaneous. The Cronbach alpha of the scale was 0.91. This is the first report of a si de effects scoresheet in Spanish for adolescents.