Further Evidence of Reliability and Validity of the Child Symptom Inventory-4: Parent Checklist in Clinically Referred Boys

Examined reliability and validity of the parent version of the Child Symptom Inventory (CSI-4) in 247 boys between 6.0 and 10 years 11 months old referred for evaluation of behavioral and emotional problems. The CSI-4 is a behavior rating scale whose items correspond to the symptoms of disorders defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Results indicated satisfactory internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, and temporal stability over a 4-year period for most symptom categories. CSI-4 ratings converged and diverged in a theoretically consistent pattern with respective scales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991a) and the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents-Revised-Parent Version (DICA-P; Reich, Shayka, & Taibleson, 1991). Discriminant validity was established in that boys with specific DICA-P diagnoses received significantly higher corresponding CSI-4 parent symptom ratings than boys not so diagnosed. Clinical utility (sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive power, negative predictive power) was evaluated for screening cutoffs based on categorical (DSM-IV) and dimensional (normative distribution of Symptom Severity scores) scoring methods.