European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry [Suppl 2]

13:II/3–II/10 (2004) DOI 10.1007/s00787-004-2002-6 ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Wolfgang Woerner Normative data and scale properties

Andreas Becker
Aribert Rothenberger of the German parent SDQ

■ Abstract Background and objec-
tives The Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire (SDQ) is a short as-
sessment instrument which ad-
dresses positive and negative be-
havioural attributes of children
and adolescents and generates
scores for clinically relevant as-
pects. Although this brief question-
naire has been widely used in Ger-
many to gather information from
parents, teachers, and older chil-
dren themselves, normative results
obtained with the German version
have not yet been reported to the
international scientific community.
To allow comparisons with SDQ
W. Woerner · A. Becker (
) ·
A. Rothenberger
University of Göttingen
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
von-Siebold-Str. 5,
37075 Göttingen, Germany
Tel.: +49-551/39-2386
Fax: +49-551/39-2696
E-Mail: abecker4@gwdg.de
findings in other countries, norma-
tive data for the German parent-
rated form as well as a community-
based evaluation of scale
properties are summarised and
complemented by results obtained
in a number of clinical samples.
Methods Parent ratings were
collected for a community-based
sample of 930 children and adoles-
cents aged between 6 and 16 years,
in which both genders and all age
levels were equally represented.
Statistical evaluation of psychome-
tric properties included a factor
analysis verifying the proposed
scale structure, assessment of scale
homogeneities, and determination
of age, gender and social class ef-
fects. Based on the distributions of
SDQ scores observed in this nor-
mative sample, recommended
bandings identifying normal, bor-
derline, and clinical ranges were
defined for each scale.
Results Exact replication of the
original scale structure, satisfac-
tory internal reliabilities, and ob-
servation of the expected associa-
tions with age and gender con-
firmed the equivalence of the
German SDQ parent questionnaire
with the English original. Diffe-
rences between community-based
results and clinical groups pro-
vided descriptive evidence of a
dramatic impact of clinically de-
fined psychiatric status on SDQ
scores.
Conclusions After evaluating
parent ratings obtained in a com-
munity-based sample, the German
SDQ was shown to possess
favourable psychometric proper-
ties. Thus, the German translation
of this popular and versatile instru-
ment seems to be a similarly reli-
able and useful assessment tool as
the original English questionnaire.
■ Key words Strengths and
Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) –
parent ratings – normative data –
screening instrument

lished 10 years ago [5]. Shortly after the publication of

Introduction
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a
brief rating instrument assessing positive and negative
aspects of the behaviour of children and adolescents,
which can be filled out by parents and teachers or as self-
the original English SDQ, translations in several lan-
guages became available, and the worldwide application
for screening, clinical, and research purposes has since
been facilitated by providing officially authorised trans-
lated versions in over 40 languages, all of which can be
readily downloaded from the internet website
ECAP 2002

report by children aged 11 years or older. First presented www.sdqinfo.com for non-commercial purposes.
to the scientific public by Robert Goodman in 1997 [4], Germany was among the first countries in which a
its roots can be traced back to an earlier report pub- systematic evaluation of this instrument was under-
II/4 European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol. 13, Supplement 2 (2004)
© Steinkopff Verlag 2004
taken. After an initial verification of the validity of the
German SDQ [8] using pooled data from different
sources, more detailed and comprehensive analyses
were carried out at the child and adolescent psychiatry
department of the University of Göttingen. As a first
step, the German form was administered to parents of a
sufficiently representative community-based sample in
order to ascertain that the proposed scale structure and
psychometric properties were equivalent to those
demonstrated for the English original and for translated
versions evaluated in Sweden [12] and Finland [9]. Since
the mean level and distribution of raw scale scores may
differ from one country to another, and even accurately
translated questionnaire items can yield slightly diffe-
rent results when administered in another language, it
was also deemed appropriate to establish national
norms for Germany, rather than applying the recom-
mended score bandings and cut-offs previously defined
for the English original. The present report describes
this first evaluation of the German parent-rated SDQ in
a community sample and communicates the obtained
findings to an international readership, summarising
and expanding earlier publications made available only
in German [7, 14].
In addition to establishing a normative database, the
reported results address the impact of gender, age, and
socio-economic status (SES) on parent-rated SDQ
scores. After an evaluation of the structure and homo-
geneity of the German scales, recommended score
bandings are proposed, defining normal, borderline,
and abnormal or clinical ranges for the total difficulties
score and each of the five SDQ subscales. Finally, nor-
mative data obtained in the community are compared
with descriptive results from several clinical samples
with differing levels of psychopathology.
Methods
■ Sample
As part of a nationwide representative survey assessing
weight problems and eating habits of young Germans
[11], parent SDQ ratings were collected for a total of 990
children and adolescents aged 6 to 16 years. Since all
analyses were to be based on the same set of data, 60
questionnaires with one or more missing answers were
excluded, leaving a final normative sample of 930 sub-
jects (467 boys and 463 girls) with valid answers on all
25 SDQ items (mean age: 10.7 years). Within this na-
tionwide subsample with complete SDQ data, gender
and age distributions were sufficiently balanced: each of
the 11 age levels comprised a minimum of 52 subjects,
including at least 23 of each gender (see [14] for a com-
prehensive breakdown by gender and age level).
Descriptive comparisons of this normative sample
with several patient groups were carried out to illustrate
the order of magnitude reflected in SDQ results of psy-
chiatric patients.As the focus of the present study clearly
lies on the community-based data, these clinical samples
are only briefly characterised in the results section.
■ Instrument
Parents were asked to complete the extended version of
the SDQ [3], which supplements the 25 core items on
specific strengths and difficulties by an overall rating of
whether their child has emotional or behavioural prob-
lems and, if so, how long such problems have been
present as well as how much distress, interference with
everyday life, and burden on the family they cause. Since
only the 25 core items and the initial question of the im-
pact supplement apply to all subjects, the present evalu-
ation focussed on the five SDQ subscales and the total
difficulties score derived from the core items.
Each of the 25 items is rated as being not true (0),
somewhat true (1), or certainly true (2), and each of the
SDQ subscales consists of five items, thus yielding scores
between 0 and 10.Although the wording chosen for 10 of
the 25 SDQ questions addresses positive behavioural at-
tributes, five of these 10 item scores are inverted before
being summed up. Thus, four of the SDQ subscales rep-
resent problem scores (emotional symptoms, conduct
problems, hyperactivity/inattention, and peer prob-
lems), which are added to obtain a total difficulties score
ranging from 0 to 40. The fifth subscale assesses the pos-
itive aspect of prosocial behaviour.
■ Statistical analysis
Data handling and all statistical analyses were carried
out using SPSS software (Statistical Package for the So-
cial Sciences; release 10.0). The employed evaluation
methods included principal component analysis, scale
reliability analyses yielding measures of internal consis-
tency (Cronbach’s α), Spearman rank correlations, and
Mann-Whitney U-tests. Nonparametric tests were used
because of the skewed distributions of the evaluated
SDQ scores.
Results
■ Scale means and gender effects
Mean scores obtained for parent ratings in the entire
sample are presented in Table 1, which also reports and
compares scale means for male and female subsamples.
Boys received significantly higher scores than girls on
the subscales assessing conduct problems, hyperactiv-
 W. Woerner et al. II/5
German parent-rated SDQ

Table 1 Scale means and gender effects for parent-

rated SDQ scores (German normative sample; age Total sample Boys Girls Gender effects
range 6 to 16 years) N = 930 N = 467 N = 463 (two-tailed)
Mean Mean Mean p

Total difficulties score 8.13 8.53 7.72 0.007 **

Emotional symptoms 1.53 1.50 1.57 ns
Conduct problems 1.82 1.95 1.68 0.001 ***
Hyperactivity/Inattention 3.19 3.40 2.97 0.004 **
Peer problems 1.59 1.67 1.51 0.045 *
Prosocial behaviour 7.55 7.45 7.67 0.095a

*** p ≤ 0.001; ** p ≤ 0.01; * p ≤ 0.05; a p ≤ 0.10; ns not significant (Mann-Whitney U-tests)

ity/inattention and, to a lesser extent, peer problems.
Gender effects on these subscales combined to yield a
significantly higher total difficulties score for male chil-
dren and adolescents. Parent ratings of their children’s
emotional symptoms and prosocial behaviour did not
reveal substantial sex differences.
■ Factor structure and internal reliability
In order to verify the proposed factorial structure of the
25 SDQ items, a principal components analysis with
varimax rotation was carried out using data from the en-
tire normative sample (Table 2). For illustrative pur-
poses, the five reverse-scored problem items were in-
verted prior to their inclusion in the analysis, and the
item order was rearranged to allow a better visualisation
of the obtained structure. After rotation of the five ex-
tracted factors with initial eigenvalues greater than 1,
the resulting pattern of main loadings was an identical
replication of the original SDQ subscales. Each of the 25
items had exactly one loading over 0.40, and in each case
the five items forming one scale were also grouped to-
gether according to the proposed structure. If loadings
under 0.35 are disregarded as shown in Table 2 to facili-
tate inspection of the factorial structure, the only in-
stance of an additional higher loading on another factor
was observed for item 14 (“Generally liked by other chil-
dren”), which, in addition to its predicted major contri-
bution to the fifth factor reflecting peer problems, was
also related to the second extracted factor representing
prosocial behaviour items.
To obtain a measure of scale reliability, internal con-
sistency coefficients (Cronbach’s α) were calculated,
both for the entire sample and subdivided by gender. As
reported in the left part of Table 3, the total difficulties
score, comprising 20 items, proved to be very homoge-
neous (α = 0.82). In line with the results of the factor
analysis, all SDQ subscales also showed satisfactory ho-
mogeneity, although coefficients for these 5-item scales
were lower in magnitude, particularly for the peer prob-
lems scale. Internal reliabilities of the conduct problems
and peer problems subscales turned out to be slightly
higher for the female subsample than in boys.
■ Age and SES effects
Table 3 also illustrates the associations between parent-
rated SDQ scores and the child’s age as well as the fam-
ily’s social status (according to a composite index based
on parental level of education, profession, and house-
hold income) scaled from 1 (= higher) to 5 (= lower
SES). The only subscale found to be significantly (albeit
weakly) associated with age was the one assessing hy-
peractivity and inattention, with older children scoring
lower than younger ones. In contrast, much stronger
effects of social class were observed. Children and ado-
lescents with less favourable social and economical
background scored significantly higher on the hyper-
activity/inattention subscale and, somewhat less
markedly, with respect to peer problems. The impact of
social class on these two scales also resulted in a sub-
stantial SES effect on the total difficulties score (right
column of Table 3).
■ Recommended bandings and cut-offs
Distributions of raw values obtained for the SDQ scales
(reported in greater detail in [14]) served as the basis for
determining recommended bandings and defining cut-
offs to identify ranges of normal, borderline, and ab-
normal (or “clinical”) scores (Table 4). Thus, exact place-
ment of cut-offs was guided by score distributions
within this community-based normative sample, and
did not involve comparisons with results from clinical
samples.
While cut-offs for the total difficulties score were
placed with the intention of obtaining approximately
10 % abnormal scores and about 10 % cases in the inter-
mediate borderline range, the respective bandings for
each of the 5 subscales were selected so as to yield a
slightly lower percentage of abnormal and borderline
II/6 European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol. 13, Supplement 2 (2004)
© Steinkopff Verlag 2004

Table 2 Factor structure and original scales of the

German parent-rated SDQ (normative sample aged 6 Extracted factor: Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 Factor 5
to 16 years; N = 930; 5-factor solution; only rotated Initial Eigenvalue: 4.99 2.22 1.86 1.23 1.17
loadings with absolute values ≥ 0.35 are reported Explained variance (initial): 20.0% 8.9% 7.5% 4.9% 4.7%
here) Explained variance (rotated): 10.8% 10.3% 9.4% 7.9% 7.6%

“Hyperactivity/Inattention”
2 Restless 0.82
10 Fidgety 0.76
15 Distractible 0.70
21 Reflective* 0.46
25 Persistent* 0.57
“Prosocial behaviour”
1 Considerate 0.60
4 Shares 0.65
9 Caring 0.67
17 Kind to kids 0.51
20 Helps out 0.70
“Emotional symptoms”
3 Somatic complaints 0.45
8 Worries 0.66
13 Unhappy 0.49
16 Clingy 0.72
24 Fears 0.59
“Conduct problems”
5 Tempers 0.42
7 Obedient* 0.45
12 Fights 0.55
18 Lies, cheats 0.65
22 Steals 0.60
“Peer problems”
6 Solitary 0.59
11 Good friend* 0.57
14 Popular* –0.39 0.47
19 Picked on, bullied 0.41
23 Best with adults 0.63

* Scores on these items were inverted before being entered in the analysis

Table 3 Scale properties of the German parent-

rated SDQ (normative sample; Cronbach’s α as well Scale homogeneity (α)
as correlations with age and socio-economic status) correlation correlation
Total sample Boys Girls with age with SES
N = 930 N = 467 N = 463 r r

Total difficulties score 0.82 0.80 0.83 –0.03 0.15***

Emotional symptoms 0.66 0.64 0.67 –0.01 0.06a
Conduct problems 0.60 0.54 0.65 0.00 0.05
Hyperactivity/Inattention 0.76 0.76 0.76 –0.09** 0.21***
Peer problems 0.58 0.55 0.61 –0.01 0.09**
Prosocial behaviour 0.68 0.69 0.67 –0.01 –0.02

*** p ≤ 0.001; ** p ≤ 0.01; a p ≤ 0.10 (Spearman rank correlations, two-tailed)

cases (i. e. approximately 85 % normal scores and 15 % in
the intermediate or clinical ranges). The reason for ap-
plying more restrictive criteria to the single subscale
bandings was to avoid identification of an excessively
large total proportion of children with abnormal or bor-
derline values on either one of the five subscales. Since
each of the subscales can only have a limited number of
discrete values (i. e. 11 possible levels from 0 to 10), the
intended percentages could only be approximated.Thus,
Table 4 also mentions the exact percentage of cases in
 W. Woerner et al. II/7
German parent-rated SDQ

Table 4 Recommended bandings of raw scores ob-

tained with the German parent-rated SDQ (entire normal range borderline range abnormal range
normative sample; N = 930 aged 6 to 16 years [14]) raw score exact % raw score exact % raw score exact %

Total difficulties score 0–12 81.6% 13–15 8.4% 16–40 10.0%

Emotional symptoms 0–3 86.0% 4 6.3% 5–10 7.7%
Conduct problems 0–3 84.7% 4 8.7% 5–10 6.6%
Hyperactivity/Inattention 0–5 85.3% 6 4.9% 7–10 9.8%
Peer problems 0–3 86.7% 4 6.3% 5–10 7.0%
Prosocial behaviour 6–10 84.4% 5 8.5% 0–4 7.1%

each of the three categories defined by the indicated
score intervals.
Since gender and/or age effects were observed for
some of the subscales and the total difficulties score,
thresholds based on the entire sample were thought to
be insufficient for some clinical applications wishing to
assess a given child’s score in relation to other subjects
of the same gender or of similar age. While the distribu-
tions of the five subscale scores determined separately
for male and female subsamples as well as for three dif-
ferent subgroups of comparable age (6–8 years, 9–13
years, 14–16 years) did not reveal sufficient deviations to
allow gender- or age-specific bandings, such stratified
bandings could be provided for the total difficulties
scores. Thus, gender-specific determination of cut-offs
would result in a range of borderline scores of 13–16 for
boys and 12–15 for girls (as compared to the 13–15 range
obtained for the entire normative sample; see Table 4).
Likewise, cut-off points separating the three bandings
are shifted upwards (borderline range for 6–8 year-olds:
14–16) or downwards (14–16 year-olds: 12–14) by one
point if only a younger or older subgroup of comparable
age is considered as reference.
■ Descriptive comparisons with clinical samples
Apart from the community-based sample examined to
establish a normative reference, SDQ parent ratings
were also collected in three patient samples with vary-
ing levels of psychopathology. Since the present report
only aims to evaluate community-based findings, there
is no intention to cover validity aspects (see [1] in this
volume). However, parent-rated SDQ scores obtained for
clinical samples can serve to illustrate the magnitude of
differences in both scale means and rates of abnormal
scores as defined by the bandings proposed in Table 4. In
addition, comparison of responses to the first question
of the SDQ impact supplement (“Overall, do you think
that your child has difficulties in one or more of the fol-
lowing areas: emotions, concentration, behaviour or be-
ing able to get on with other people?”, with possible an-
swers being No, minor difficulties, definite difficulties,
and severe difficulties) was thought to provide further
information on similarities and differences between
samples.
Although only subgroups aged from 6 to 16 years
were included in order to achieve a certain level of com-
parability, mean age substantially differed among the
samples mentioned in Table 5. Along with the observed
deviating gender distributions, this fact precluded sim-
ple statistical comparisons without adequately control-
ling or correcting for possible age and gender effects.
Thus, only descriptive results are reported, which can
nevertheless give an impression of the variability be-
tween community-based and clinical findings. Separate
analyses of parent-rated SDQ scores for male and female
subgroups showed that the overall pattern of differences
between the investigated samples was not substantially
confounded by gender effects.
In terms of either scale means or proportion of scores
in the abnormal range, the first clinical group showed
very similar results as the normative sample. Obviously,
only a minority of these paediatric outpatients investi-
gated by Hellwig [6] were seeing their paediatrician be-
cause of behaviour-related problems. Although no de-
tails on clinical diagnoses or individual reasons for
consulting the paediatrician are available, it is highly
likely that a large proportion of these consultations were
motivated by either routine health check-ups of younger
children, vaccination appointments, or other causes un-
related to psychopathological symptoms. Notable devi-
ations from the community-based reference values only
concerned a slightly increased occurrence of emotional
symptoms and more frequent reports of definite or se-
vere overall behaviour difficulties (as indicated by the
first answer on the impact supplement), while prosocial
behaviour received even higher ratings by parents of
these paediatric outpatients than in the normative sam-
ple.
In contrast to the community and paediatric groups,
SDQ results of the other two samples described in
Table 5 reflect the specifically behaviour-related nature
of their problems. The child rehabilitation sample com-
prised a mixture of inpatients with predominantly psy-
chosomatic and/or psychiatric diagnoses, with the most
frequently noted problems being adipositas, attention-
deficit/hyperactivity disorders, and asthma or other res-
II/8 European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol. 13, Supplement 2 (2004)
© Steinkopff Verlag 2004

Table 5 Parent-rated SDQ scales for 6- to 16-year-olds from the German normative sample and different clinical groups

Normative sample Paediatric outpatients Child rehabilitation Child psychiatric

Source: Woerner et al. 2002 Hellwig 2004 Oepen et al. 2003 Becker et al. 2004

Sample size (6–16 years) N 930 995 1049 639

Mean age years 10.7 9.9 11.4 10.5
male % 50.2 52.4 56.0 71.7

Total difficulties score Mean 8.13 8.18 16.77 16.15

% ≥ 16* 10.0 12.8 56.8 53.1
Emotional symptoms Mean 1.53 2.14 4.19 3.67
% ≥ 5* 7.7 14.1 45.0 35.8
Conduct problems Mean 1.82 1.79 3.51 3.59
% ≥ 5* 6.6 7.2 31.0 32.4
Hyperactivity/Inattention Mean 3.19 3.02 5.41 5.72
% ≥ 7* 9.8 11.8 35.8 42.4
Peer problems Mean 1.59 1.23 3.66 3.17
% ≥ 5* 7.0 4.7 36.2 27.1
Prosocial behaviour Mean 7.55 8.23 7.39 6.69
% ≤ 4* 7.1 2.8 8.2 17.5

(N = 930) (N = 929) (N = 1044) (N = 633)

Overall difficulties (0–3) Mean 0.46 0.50 1.53 1.81

(definite or severe) % ≥2 5.1 11.7 52.3 65.5

* Range of abnormal scores as defined by the recommended German norms for the parent-rated SDQ [14]

piratory disorders [10]. Finally, the child psychiatric
group represents a 6- to 16-year-old subsample of in-
and outpatients referred to the child psychiatry depart-
ment of a large university hospital, whose SDQ results
were used in a comprehensive validation study (see [1]
in this volume). Although not all subjects in these latter
patient samples did indeed receive a psychiatric diagno-
sis, the abundance of psychiatric disorders was dramat-
ically reflected in the observed SDQ scores: The mean
total difficulties score derived from parent ratings was
twice as high as in the community, with over 50 % scor-
ing in the abnormal range. In parallel, the percentage of
parents reporting definite or severe overall difficulties
(impact supplement) also leaped to over 50 %.
Discussion
Different aspects addressed in the present evaluation of
the German parent-rated SDQ included examination of
scale structure, distributions of scale scores, and effects
of gender, age and socio-economic status observed in a
sufficiently large and representative community-based
sample aged from 6 to 16 years. Overall, the obtained
findings agreed well with previous work investigating
psychometric properties of the SDQ in other countries.
Although primarily aiming to establish national
norms for the German version of the parent SDQ,the ob-
tained scale means and distributions were also compared
against those recorded in the larger UK sample. Recom-
mended bandings and cut-offs defined for the British
parent reports [2,4] as well as more detailed information
on means and distributions available from the SDQ web-
site (www.sdqinfo.com) only revealed small deviations
between the score distributions observed in the German
and British samples. For the total difficulties score, the
clinical range (defining approximately 10 % of commu-
nity cases with the highest scores) for the German sam-
ple included total difficulties ratings of 16 or more points,
while the British normative data suggested a slightly
higher cut-off requiring a total score of at least 17. Com-
parison of cut-offs for the five subscales proved more dif-
ficult, as lower target rates of borderline and abnormal
cases than in the UK were used to determine bandings for
the German parent reports. However, even after correct-
ing for the different age range in the two normative sam-
ples (UK: 5–15 years,Germany: 6–16 years),cut-off inde-
pendent SDQ scale means still tended to be a bit lower in
Germany than in the UK, particularly on subscales as-
sessing emotional symptoms and hyperactivity/inatten-
tion. While these two problem scales also combined to
yield a somewhat lower mean total difficulties score in
the German community sample, the most striking diffe-
rence in scale means was noted on the prosocial behav-
iour subscale, where German parents reported lower
levels than their UK counterparts. In spite of these small
nation-specific deviations, scores obtained with the Ger-
man parent SDQ showed much greater similarities with
the UK distributions than a recent report comparing
Dutch and British SDQ means [13].
 W. Woerner et al. II/9
German parent-rated SDQ

It is not possible to determine the true reasons un-
derlying such minor differences in mean SDQ scores,
because even after excluding sampling bias,age and gen-
der differences, and improper translation as potential
sources, these deviations between normative data from
two countries could reflect either real differences in chil-
dren’s behaviour or different standards (and tolerance
levels) applied by raters when they report on the child’s
behaviour – or may even result from very subtle diffe-
rences in the wording of the items which, although being
equivalent and correct translations, could affect the in-
formant’s readiness to endorse a particular statement. In
large samples, as usually required and examined for cal-
ibration and standardisation purposes, even very small
effects can easily attain statistical significance.Such con-
founded factors are extremely difficult to disentangle,
thus underlining the necessity of establishing national
norms, but also posing an additional challenge to ade-
quately interpret cross-cultural comparisons.
Hence, comparisons of other scale properties such as
factorial structure, reliability measures, or observed age
and gender effects seem to represent more relevant cri-
teria for examining equivalence than the exact levels of
scale means obtained with a given instrument in diffe-
rent countries and using translations in different lan-
guages. With respect to the scale structure, factor analy-
sis of the German parent-rated SDQ yielded an exact
replication of the original five scales, which was also re-
flected in the obtained internal reliabilities. Scale homo-
geneities were sufficiently high and comparable to those
reported for community samples in the UK [2] and in
Sweden [12]. In particular, the total difficulties score
based on the 20 problem items of the SDQ showed con-
vincingly high internal consistency coefficients of at
least 0.80.
Age and gender effects on SDQ scores also agreed
well with those observed by comparable studies in other
countries, parents reporting higher levels of hyperactiv-
ity/inattention and conduct problems for sons than for
daughters. In line with developmental changes in clini-
cal prevalence rates as detected by epidemiological stud-
ies, the hyperactivity/inattention score declined with in-
creasing age. However, parent-rated hyperactivity and
total difficulties scores were more strongly associated
with social class than with age. Since the cumulative im-
pact of even weak age or gender effects on several prob-
lem areas is more clearly reflected in the distribution of
the total difficulties scores, separate age- and gender-
specific bandings of abnormal and borderline ranges
were calculated in order to facilitate the interpretation of
individual SDQ results by allowing reference to sub-
groups of comparable age and same gender.
The magnitude of the differences between commu-
nity-based and clinical SDQ scores was illustrated by
comparing results from the normative sample with a se-
lection of patient groups investigated in different clini-
cal settings. While parent ratings for paediatric outpa-
tients were very similar to the community-based results,
the predominance of behaviour disorders in two other
clinical samples (child rehabilitation inpatients as well
as referred in- and outpatients of a child psychiatric de-
partment) led to dramatically enhanced scale means
and percentages of abnormal scores on all SDQ problem
scales. Although representing no decisive statistical evi-
dence of the validity of the instrument, such descriptive
comparisons provide an initial clue suggesting clinical
utility of the SDQ. Validation issues are specifically ad-
dressed in a companion report in this supplement vol-
ume [1].
In conclusion, results obtained when the German
parent-rated SDQ was completed for a large commu-
nity-based sample of 6- to 16-year-old children and ado-
lescents demonstrated similar scale properties as those
observed for the original English questionnaire in the
UK. The proposed scale structure and sufficient scale
homogeneities were replicated with the German trans-
lation.Age and gender effects on SDQ scores strongly re-
sembled epidemiological results showing prevalence
rates of psychiatric disorders to depend on both age and
gender. Thus, the German version of the parent-re-
ported SDQ appears to be an assessment tool as efficient
and useful as the English original. The establishment of
national norms is hoped to further facilitate and en-
courage its application in clinical diagnostics, screening
programmes, and child psychiatric research settings.

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