Psychometric Properties of Turkish Version of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire for Age 2-4

Introduction: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for 2-4 year olds (SDQ 2-4) is one of the best of these scales developed to screen children in early childhood for psychosocial problems. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of SDQ 2-4 in Turkish for the age group of 2-4 years. Methods: The study was conducted with 159 participants. SDQ 2-4 Parent and BITSEA scales were applied to parents. Patients whose scores were detected to be at risk were referred to the hospital and a clinical interview was performed. Results: Chronbach alpha value for total difficulties scale was 0.80. Total difficulties score of the SDQ was positively correlated with the BITSEA/P score, and negatively correlated with the BITSEA/C score. Prosocial Behaviors score of SDQ was positively correlated with BITSEA/C while it was negatively correlated with BITSEA/P. In all scales of SDQ that identified the problem, the scores of the participants with clinical diagnosis were significantly higher than the scores of the participants not diagnosed. The cut-off value for total difficulties scale was calculated as 10 with 80% sensitivity and 88% specificity. Conclusion: The SDQ 2-4 scale is valid and reliable in the Turkish language.