Rationally and empirically derived dimensions of children's symptomatology: Expert ratings and confirmatory factor analyses of the CBCL

Expert ratings and confirmatory factor analyses were used to develop an alt ernative system for scoring the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; T. M. Achen bach, 1991) to measure specific dimensions corresponding to current concept ualizations of child symptomatology. Data were from a nonclinic and 2 indep endent clinic samples. Subscales measuring Anxiety, Attention Problems/Hype ractivity, Conduct Problems, Depression, Oppositional Defiant, Social Probl ems/Immaturity, and Somatization were created. Logistic regressions were co nducted to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency and discrimination of the new and original approaches to scoring the CBCL. Some of the new subscales dem onstrated better sensitivity, positive predictive power, and discriminant v alidity than the original CBCL subscales; however, subscales from both appr oaches demonstrated low sensitivity. Results support the use of the new sub scales for specific research purposes.