Use of a multidimensional scale for parents of children aged 6 to 11 years old for the diagnosis of attention deficit with hyperactivity

Introduction. The BASC is a multidimensional approach to evaluate the child behavior and it has been validated on the diagnosis of ADD/+H in North American children. Objective. Validating BASC-PRS 6-11 on the diagnosis of ADD/+H. Patients and methods. We selected 25 male DSM IV-ADD/+H (combined type), 6 to 11-years-old children, and 25 age, gender; and socioeconomic status matched controls. Mean ages of both groups 8.16 (1.5), schooling of controls 2.64 (1.4), and cases 2.6 (1.9). Results. On the Clinical Scale ADD/+H children had significant (Anova p< 0.01) higher scores in hyperactivity, conduct problems, and attention problems. On the Adaptive Scale only significant differences on social skills and leadership were found, with lower score in the ADD/+H group. A crosstab analysis between group, code and each rating variable transformed into categorical (0 and 1) variable, cut-off point = 85 percentile, Sound that the case children's parents qualified as clinically in higher risk the variables attention problems (OR = 24.4; 95% CI = 4.5-130), conduct problems (OR = 9.0; 95% CI = 1.7-46.9) and hyperactivity, (OR = 6.8, 95% CI = 1.6-28.5) (p < 0.01). A discriminant analysis selected attention problems as discriminant function (p < 0.0001). Classification capability 84% for each group. Conclusion. Our results proved the validity of the BASC-PRS 6-11 questionnaire for the screening diagnosis of ADD/+H children in a Spanish speaking population [REV NEUROL 1999; 28: 952-9].