Race/Ethnicity and Inter-Informant Agreement in Assessing Adolescent Psychopathology

Abstract

The authors examined the influence of race/ethnicity on patterns of ratings of adolescent psychopathology completed by adolescents, parents, and teachers in a sample of 600 adolescents. Robust racial/ethnic differences in behavior problems emerged with parent and teacher reports, but not with adolescent self-reports. Discrepancy scores revealed that minority parents reported fewer behavior problems than did youth. Such findings have important implications for treatment seeking, as parents are often the initiators of service use for youth. Compared to other informants, teachers reported fewer internalizing problems among minority adolescents in general, fewer externalizing problems in Asian/Pacific Islanders,and more externalizing problems for African Americans. These findings are consistent with a number of explanations, including cultural differences in adult distress thresholds, racial/ ethnic bias among teachers, and cultural differences in symptom expression.

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