Psychometric Properties of the Self-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in a Nigerian Adolescents Sample

Background: In most low-and-middle income countries, more than 50% of the population are children and adolescents. There are very few child and adolescent mental health professionals to attend to the mental health needs of this population. Therefore, screening instruments that are easy to use, and requires little time to complete should be made available to these few and overburdened professionals. Hence, this study aimed at establishing the psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) among adolescents attending a Secondary School in Nigeria.

Methods: The validation was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, one hundred and two adolescents aged 13-16 years completed the self-report version of the SDQ. The second stage involved the administration of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children, Current and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL) to all the 102 participants in the first stage.

Results: The SDQ displayed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.82). A cut-off of 14 gave the optimal threshold point with a sensitivity of 0.84, specificity of 0.88 and a misclassification rate of 0.19. A factor analysis of the instrument supported the original five-factor hypothesis with items on the pro-social scale loading with the lowest scores.

Conclusions: The self-report SDQ demonstrated good psychometric properties and confirmed the five-factor hypothesis of the original author. However, future research should establish indigenous meaningful construct within this population and culture with special consideration on the pro-social scale of the instrument.