DAWBA diagnoses in ALSPAC.

Emotional disorders are common in childhood, and their prevalence sharply increases during adolescence. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely used for screening emotional and behavioural difficulties in children and young people, but little is known about the accuracy of the emotional subscale (SDQ-E) in detecting emotional disorders, and whether this changes over development. Such knowledge is important in determining whether symptom changes across age are due to developmental or measurement differences. This study assessed the validity of the SDQ-E and two individual items (low mood and general worry) in differentiating between cases and non-cases of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and other anxiety disorders across ages 7, 10, 13, 15, and 25 years in a UK population cohort. Analyses showed moderate accuracy of the subscale in discriminating cases of MDD (AUC = 0.67–0.85), and high accuracy for discriminating cases of GAD (AUC = 0.80–0.93) and any anxiety disorder (AUC = 0.74–0.83) compared to non-cases. The SDQ-E performed well across ages and sex, and generally performed better than the two individual items. Together our findings validate the SDQ-E as a screen for emotional disorders during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, and as a tool for longitudinal research on depression and anxiety disorders.

情感障碍在儿童群体中较为常见，且其患病率在青春期会出现显著攀升。长处与困难问卷（Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, SDQ）被广泛应用于儿童与青年群体的情绪及行为困难筛查，但目前学界对其情绪分量表（SDQ-E）在识别情感障碍时的精准度，以及该精准度是否随发育进程发生变化仍知之甚少。此类研究信息对于明确不同年龄段的症状变化究竟源于发育差异还是测量偏差，具有重要意义。本研究依托英国一项人群队列，针对7、10、13、15及25岁五个年龄段，评估了SDQ-E情绪分量表以及情绪低落、广泛性担忧两个独立条目，在区分重性抑郁障碍（Major Depressive Disorder, MDD）、广泛性焦虑障碍（Generalised Anxiety Disorder, GAD）及其他焦虑障碍的阳性与阴性病例时的效度。分析结果显示，该分量表在区分MDD阳性病例时表现出中等效度（曲线下面积Area Under the Curve, AUC=0.67~0.85），在区分GAD阳性病例（AUC=0.80~0.93）及各类焦虑障碍阳性病例（AUC=0.74~0.83）时则具有较高效度，均优于阴性对照。SDQ-E情绪分量表在不同年龄段及不同性别群体中均表现优异，且整体表现优于上述两个独立条目。综上，本研究结果证实，SDQ-E情绪分量表可作为儿童期、青春期及成年早期情感障碍的筛查工具，同时也可用于抑郁与焦虑障碍的纵向研究。