Prevalence of Emotional and Behavioral Symptoms and their Impact on Daily Life Activities in a Community Sample of 3 to
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Prevalence of Emotional and Behavioral Symptoms and their Impact on Daily Life Activities in a Community Sample of 3 to 5-Year-Old Children Sandra Fuchs • Annette M. Klein • Yvonne Otto Kai von Klitzing
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Published online: 31 October 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract The aim of the study was to evaluate prevalence and impact of behavioral/emotional symptoms in preschoolers. The sample comprised 1,738 preschoolers with an age range between 37 and 63 months. Parents rated children’s symptoms using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the impact of perceived difficulties using the impact supplement of the SDQ. The prevalence of a total difficulties score in an abnormal/ borderline range was 16.0 % that means lower than rates in schoolchildren. 8.6 % of the preschoolers were rated as symptomatic (borderline/abnormal) and their symptoms were rated as having some or considerable impact on their lives. Parents mostly reported problems of hyperactivity/ inattention and their interference with learning abilities. All symptoms scales of the SDQ, except prosocial behavior, significantly explained impact of perceived difficulties. Parents of boys rated significantly higher levels of symptoms and impact. Low parental education was associated with more symptoms and higher impact. Keywords Epidemiology Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire Preschool children Impact Gender differences
Introduction The proportion of papers in the child psychiatric literature dealing with preschool children is relatively low. One
S. Fuchs (&) A. M. Klein Y. Otto K. von Klitzing Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Leipzig, Liebigstr. 20a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
plausible reason is the lack of adequate instruments for screening and/or diagnosing children so early [1]. The controversy is whether psychiatric disorders in the early years are different in quality and quantity from disorders in school-age, adolescence, and adulthood, or whether early disorders are similar but have to be diagnosed by developmentally sensitive methods. This leads to the need for studies on the prevalence of symptoms in the preschool years, the impact of these symptoms on development, and the characteristics of these symptoms (e.g. connection with the social environment, specificity of symptoms etc.) compared with symptoms at later ages (e.g. school-age). From a developmental point of view [2, 3] it seems likely that emotional as well as behavioral problems exist to the same extent in all phases of childhood, but that the phenomenology might be different depending on the challenges of the social world. Developmentally sensitive diagnostic approaches suggest that difficulties in regulation of motor and/or affect impulses might express themselves differently, depending on whether or not the child is already confronting the challenges of the school environment [4, 5]. Furthermore at preschool a
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