Cecilia A Essau
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a widely used brief screening measure for general difficulties and positive attributes in children and adolescents. The main aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Urdu translated version of the SDQ (SDQ-U) among Pakistani adolescents. A total of 1277 adolescents (708 boys and 569 girls), aged 13-17 years, participated in the study. The adolescents were recruited from 13 schools in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. In addition to the SDQ, the adolescents completed the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS). The internal consistency of the SDQ-U total difficulties was good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.70. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the three-compared to the five-factor model provided a better fit. The SDQ-U total scores correlated significantly with the SCAS total scores and with all its subscales. The SDQ-U proved to be a reliable and valid measure of emotional and behavioural problems in the Pakistani context.
