Cutting a Long Story Short? The Clinical Relevance of Asking Parents, Nurses, and Young Children Themselves to Identify Children’s Mental Health Problems by One or Two Questions

Table 3

The odds ratios (OR) for child outcomes related to parent’s and nurse’s evaluation of the child’s difficulties and child’s self-evaluation of emotional well-being according to DAWBA assessment in a sample of Finnish 4–9-year-old children ( = 646). The OR of each separate evaluation (no or mild difficulties/concerns versus more severe options) for each outcome measure is shown.

	Computer-predicted prevalence^1	Rater-assigned child psychiatric ICD-10 diagnosis
		Any	Emotional	Conduct	Hyperactivity	Other^2	Situational factors^3
	OR; (95% CI)	OR; (95% CI)	OR; (95% CI)	OR; (95% CI)	OR; (95% CI)	OR; (95% CI)	OR; (95% CI)
Parent’s concern enquiry	14.4; (8.4–24.9)	9.9; (6.3–15.6)	4.5; (2.6–19.2)	9.9; (5.1–18.9)	8.1; (3.9–16.8)	9.7; (4.0–23.2)	7.3; (3.8–14.0)
Nurse’s concern enquiry	13.6; (7.8–23.5)	12.4; (7.8–19.7)	4.0; (2.2–7.1)	10.0; (5.2–19.3)	34.3; (12.9–91.1)	5.8; (2.5–13.3)	8.2; (4.2–16.0)
Child’s self-evaluation; (two questions combined)	2.2; (1.1–4.7)	2.4; (1.3–4.5)	3.0; (1.4–6.5)	2.0; (0.85–5.0)	1.2; (0.4–4.2)	1.1; (0.3–5.0)	3.2; (1.4–7.5)

Prevalence level <75%/≥75%.
²Tic/Tourette, pervasive developmental disorders, and not otherwise specified mental disorders.
³Factors influencing health status and contact with health services (ICD-10): Z61 problems related to negative life events in childhood, Z62 other problems related to upbringing, and Z63 other problems related to primary support group, including family circumstances.
< 0.05.
< 0.001.