The Beavers, McMaster and Circumplex clinical rating scales: a study of their sensitivity, specificity and discriminant validity

To assess the sensitivity and specificity of clinical rating scales from th e Beavers, McMaster and Circumplex models of family functioning videotapes of sixty families engaging in a standardized family task interview were rat ed using the three rating scales. The sixty families included twenty contai ning a child with an emotional disorder, twenty containing a child with a m ixed disorder of emotions and conduct, and twenty in which none of the chil dren presented with clinically significant difficulties. The three rating s cales accurately classified 85-90% of normal controls, 70-90% of cases cont aining a child with a mixed disorder of emotions and conduct, and 55-65% of families containing a child with an emotional disorder. On the rating scal es, the Beavers and McMaster models showed particularly high levels of sens itivity in detecting clinical cases, whereas the Circumplex rating scale wa s particularly good at classifying non-clinical cases accurately.