ABSTRACT
Objective: We used latent class analysis (LCA) to examine the prevalence and characteristics of the Dysregulation Profile (DP) based on data from the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 6–18. The DP comprises elevated scores on the Anxious/Depressed, Attention Problems, and Aggressive Behavior syndromes and thus reflects significant problems in self-regulation of mood, attention, and behavior.
Method: We examined CBCL data for 56,666 children ages 6 to 16 in 29 societies, many of which are countries but some of which are not (e.g., Hong Kong, Puerto Rico). The 29 societies varied widely in race/ethnicity, religion, geographic location, political/economic system, and population size.
Results: The various statistical indices for good LCA model fit, while not always consistent, supported a DP class in every society. The omnicultural mean probability of assignment to the DP class (mean of the societal means) was 93% (SD = 2.4%). Prevalence of the DP class ranged from 2% to 18% across societies, with an omnicultural mean prevalence of 9%. In every society, the DP class had significantly higher scores than the pooled non-DP classes on all three DP syndromes. The 8-syndrome T score profile for the DP class in many societies featured elevations on all eight CBCL syndromes.
Conclusions: Although the same instrument, analytic procedures, and decision rules were used in these 29 samples, model fit, the number of classes, and the prevalence of the DP class varied across societies. High scores on the three DP syndromes often co-occurred with high scores on most other CBCL syndromes.
Acknowledgments
Members of the ASEBA International Consortium who generously provided data for this paper include: Fredrik Almqvist (Finland), Ivan Begovac (Croatia), Niels Bilenberg (Denmark), Hector Bird (Puerto Rico), Myriam Chahed (Tunisia), Manfred Dopfner (Germany), Nese Erol (Turkey), Eric Fombonne (France), Alessandra Frigerio (Italy), Helga Hannesdottir (Iceland), Nohelia Hewitt Ramirez (Colombia), Yasuko Kanbayashi (Japan), Michael Lambert (Jamaica), Bo Larsson (Sweden), Patrick Leung (Hong Kong), Xianchen Liu (China), Asghar Minaei (Iran), Torunn Novik (Norway), Kyung-Ja Oh (South Korea), Rolando Pomalima (Peru), Vlasta Rudan (Croatia), Michael Sawyer (Australia), Mimoza Shahini (Kosovo), Edwiges Silvares (Brazil), Zeynep Simsek (Turkey), Hans-Christoph Steinhausen (Switzerland), Jose Valverde (Peru), Frank Verhulst (The Netherlands), Sheila Weintraup (Finland), John Weisz (Thailand), Christa Winkler Metzke (Switzerland), Tomasz Wolanczyk (Poland), Nelly Zilber (Israel), and Rita Zukauskiene (Lithuania).
Disclosure statement
The first and sixth authors receive compensation from the University of Vermont non-profit Research Center for Children, Youth, and Families, which publishes the instrument used in this research.
Supplementary Material
Supplemental material for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2019.1697929.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.