Children's self‐reports and parents' reports of internalising and externalising problems in Chinese and Anglo‐Celtic children in Australia

Figures & data

Table 1 Parents' occupation and educational attainment

–	Chinese	Anglo‐Celtic
Mother's occupation	(n = 49)	(n = 61)
Professional	33%	59%
Non‐professional	27%	15%
Own business	16%	6%
Not employed	24%	20%
Father's occupation	(n = 46)	(n = 60)
Professional	46%	75%
Non‐professional	26%	12%
Own business	24%	13%
Not employed	4%	0%
Mother's education	(n = 50)	(n = 61)
Postgraduate	8%	18%
Undergraduate	42%	33%
TAFE/High school	36%	38%
Did not complete high school	14%	12%
Father's education	(n = 47)	(n = 60)
Postgraduate	17%	33%
Undergraduate	40%	38%
TAFE/High school	19%	17%
Did not complete high school	23%	12%

TAFE = Technical and Further Education institutions.

Table 2 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for YSR syndrome and internalizing, externalizing, and total problem scales by children's ancestry group and sex

–	Chinese			Anglo‐Celtic
Scale	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls	Total
Anxious‐depressed	5.00(3.97)	4.38(2.69)	4.66(3.32)	3.91(3.36)	3.73(2.77)	3.83(3.07)
Withdrawn‐depressed	3.81(2.77)	3.28(2.14)	3.52(2.44)	3.03(2.32)	2.07(1.86)	2.58(2.16)
Somatic problems	4.15(2.74)	2.75(2.23)	3.39(2.55)	3.31(2.39)	3.33(3.04)	3.32(2.69)
Social problems	3.30(2.83)	3.09(2.05)	3.19(2.42)	3.46(2.74)	2.33(2.62)	2.94(2.72)
Thought problems	4.37(3.58)	2.88(2.98)	3.56(3.32)	3.57(3.81)	3.33(3.90)	3.46(3.82)
Attention problems	4.37(2.31)	3.31(2.16)	3.80(2.27)	4.94(3.36)	3.07(2.42)	4.08(3.09)
Rule‐breaking behaviour	3.63(4.13)	1.66(1.60)	2.56(3.16)	3.23(2.33)	1.67(1.73)	2.51(2.20)
Aggressive behaviour	6.37(5.10)	4.41(3.72)	5.31(4.48)	6.57(3.73)	5.40(4.45)	6.03(4.09)
Other problems	4.15(2.27)	3.03(2.35)	3.54(2.35)	4.97(3.03)	4.10(2.68)	4.57(2.89)
Internalizing Problems	12.96(8.49)	10.41(5.76)	11.58(7.19)	10.26(7.13)	9.13(6.21)	9.74(6.70)
Externalizing Problems	10.00(8.70)	6.06(4.76)	7.86(7.06)	9.80(5.64)	7.07(5.85)	8.54(5.86)
Total Problems	39.15(23.62)	28.78(15.80)	33.53(20.27)	37.00(20.54)	29.03(19.06)	33.32(20.12)
n	27	32	59	35	30	65

YSR = Youth Self‐Report.

Table 3 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for CBCL syndrome and internalizing, externalizing, and total problem scales by children's ancestry group and sex

–	Chinese			Anglo‐Celtic
Scale	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls	Total
Anxious‐depressed	2.43(2.48)	2.67(2.92)	2.56(2.70)	2.70(2.77)	2.59(2.53)	2.65(2.64)
Withdrawn‐depressed	1.22(1.81)	1.52(2.08)	1.38(1.95)	1.61(2.37)	1.07(1.58)	1.35(2.04)
Somatic problems	1.00(1.57)	1.04(1.37)	1.02(1.45)	1.21(1.47)	1.62(1.93)	1.40(1.70)
Social problems	2.04(2.27)	1.89(2.22)	1.96(2.22)	1.82(2.69)	1.48(3.00)	1.66(2.82)
Thought problems	1.74(2.36)	1.52(1.89)	1.62(2.10)	1.36(1.73)	1.03(1.15)	1.21(1.48)
Attention problems	3.91(3.64)	2.52(2.74)	3.16(3.23)	3.45(3.04)	1.93(2.02)	2.74(2.70)
Rule‐breaking behaviour	1.35(1.37)	0.89(1.12)	1.10(1.25)	1.39(1.64)	1.07(2.63)	1.24(2.15)
Aggressive behaviour	3.09(2.41)	2.59(3.30)	2.82(2.90)	4.21(3.50)	4.34(6.14)	4.27(4.87)
Other problems	2.17(2.23)	1.70(1.73)	1.92(1.97)	3.00(2.76)	2.38(2.54)	2.71(2.66)
Internalizing problems	4.65(4.71)	5.22(5.84)	4.96(5.30)	5.52(5.48)	5.28(5.10)	5.40(5.26)
Externalizing problems	4.43(3.38)	3.48(3.84)	3.92(3.63)	5.61(4.78)	5.41(8.62)	5.52(6.79)
Total problems	18.96(14.36)	16.33(15.41)	17.54(14.84)	20.76(16.48)	17.52(19.04)	19.24(17.65)
n	23	27	50	33	29	62

CBCL = Child Behaviour Checklist.

Table 4 Proportion of children in clinical range of scores (T scores ≥65) on internalizing (INT), externalizing (EXT), and total problem scales on YSR and CBCL

–	Chinese			Anglo‐Celtic
	Boys	Girls	Total	Boys	Girls	Total
YSR
INT problems	18.5%	6.3%	11.9%	14.3%	0%	7.7%
EXT problems	14.8%	3.1%	8.5%	2.9%	3.3%	3.1%
Total problems	22.2%	3.1%	11.9%	17.1%	3.3%	10.8%
n	(27)	(32)	(59)	(35)	(30)	(65)
CBCL
INT problems	8.7%	11.1%	10.0%	9.1%	13.8%	11.3%
EXT problems	0%	0%	0%	3.0%	6.9%	4.8%
Total problems	4.3%	3.7%	4.0%	9.1%	3.4%	6.5%
n	(23)	(27)	(50)	(33)	(29)	(62)

CBCL = Child Behaviour Checklist; EXT = externalizing; INT = internalizing; YSR = Youth Self‐Report.

Table 5 Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), mean difference, and 95% range for raw scores on YSR and CBCL scales

–	Chinese (n = 50)			Anglo‐Celtic (n = 62)
	ICC	M diff	95% range	ICC	M diff	95% range
Anxious‐depressed	.07	2.38***	−7.73to10.73	.11	1.18	−8.43to8.85
Withdrawn‐depressed	−.01	2.30***	−5.18to8.73	.31**	1.21***	−4.43to6.42
Somatic problems	.01	2.62***	−3.00to9.90	.11	2.03***	−3.85to8.00
Social problems	.09	1.20	−7.00to6.73	.50***	1.27***	−5.85to7.00
Thought problems	.10	2.28***	−4.45to12.00	.14	2.40***	−2.00to13.42
Attention problems	.17	0.78	−8.90to6.00	.37***	1.29**	−7.00to7.42
Rule‐breaking behaviour	−.08	1.62^†	−3.00to15.73	.24	1.26***	−6.97to6.85
Aggressive behaviour	.01	2.80**	−9.63to16.73	.36**	1.61	−13.25to11.42
Other problems	.18	1.98***	−4.00to7.73	.40***	2.15***	−2.00to7.85
Internalizing problems	.01	8.20***	−15.18to25.63	.21	4.21***	−12.00to20.27
Externalizing problems	−.04	4.42**	−11.63to30.80	.33**	2.87**	−17.92to17.00
Total problems	.01	17.96***	−45.93to85.23	.33***	14.40***	−33.85to56.12

M diff = Mean difference.

*** p < .001, **p < .004,

† p = .004.