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Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
Medical diagnostics
LOINC 62713-3
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The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a self-report inventory behavioral screening questionnaire for children and adolescents ages 2 through 17 years old, developed by United Kingdom child psychiatrist Robert N. Goodman. The SDQ is available online, and has been translated into more than 80 languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Portuguese. The PhenX Toolkit uses SDQ as its child protocol for General Psychiatric Assessment and for Broad Psychopathology.

There are three versions of the SDQ: a short form, a longer form with impact supplement, and a follow-up form designed for use after a behavioral intervention. The questionnaire takes 5–10 minutes to complete.

The SDQ scoring site allows one to score paper copies of a parent, teacher and/or self-report and generates a brief report. Each of the five scales of the SDQ are scored from 0-10, and one can add up four of these (emotional, conduct, hyperactivity and peer problems) to create a total difficulty score (range 0-40). One can also add the emotional and peer items together to get an internalising problems score (range 0-20) and add the conduct and hyperactivity questions together to get an externalising score (range 0-20).

One can also use the 5 scales of the SDQ either as dimensions (range 0-10) or else categorised into three- or four-categories in a similar was as is done for the total difficulty score. Alternatively, one can combine scales such that emotional+peer problems scales form a larger internalising scale (range 0-20) and the conduct + hyperactivity scales form a larger externalising scale (range 0=20). Research suggests that in low-risk groups (e.g. a general population sample) the latter approach may be preferable, as there is less discrimination between the finer scales for lower scores (e.g. a child with a score of 2 on the hyperactivity scale is at increased risk of hyperactivity and behavioural disorder to a roughly equal degree). By contrast in high-risk samples (e.g. a clinic setting) the 5 finer scales may come into their own, as there is much more discrimination between them at higher scores (e.g. a child with a score of 7 on the hyperactivity scale is specifically at greater risk of a hyperactivity disorder, to a greater degree than they are at increased risk of a behavioural disorder)


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