Ten‐year time trends of psychopathology in Dutch children and adolescents: no evidence for strong trends

The 10-year time trends in competencies and problem scores in children and adolescents were assessed. Children and adolescents randomly selected from the Dutch general population in 1983 were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist and the Teacher's Report Form. Their problem scores and competence scores were compared with those obtained by the same method 10 years later. No significant differences were found between the 1983 and 1993 total problem scores obtained from parents or teachers. On the level of problem items and scales, a few differences indicating an increase in problems were found. However, the magnitude of these differences was very small. Our results did not provide evidence for a clear secular increase in malfunctioning of Dutch children and adolescents.