Abstract

Portuguese child psychologists and psychiatrists have limited access to validated instruments to assess children's and adolescents' psychopathology, seriously compromising clinical practice and research. Although there are some measures translated into Portuguese, the most recent version of the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) battery (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000; 2001), considered to be the international landmark in this field, is not validated in Portugal. Thus, it is intended, among a sample of clinical population (680 subjects - 40 age group) and a normative population (sample of 2544 subjects, of a total population of 1,736,689 Portuguese students), validate the ASEBA battery.

 

Aims:
Major Aim: provide a validated set of internationally recognised tools - ASEBA battery - for diagnosing psychopathological syndromes in children and adolescents, from 18 months to 18 years, to portuguese mental health professionals.

 

Specific aims:

1. To develop Portuguese versions for 5 measures from the ASEBA battery (Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000; 2001), that enable the assessment of psychopathological symptoms and syndromes, as well as psychossocial competences in children and adolescents using different informants;
2. To validate the Portuguese versions of the ASEBA battery in a representative normative sample of portuguese children and adolescents aged between 18 months to 18 years and in a clinical group of children and adolescents attending psychology and psychiatry services;
3. To establish norms for the portuguese population, derived from the data collected in both the clinical and non-clinical samples.

 

Research tasks:

• Literature review;
• Translation of the instruments;
• Data collection Recolha de dados - normative sample;
• Data collection - clinical population;
• Data analysis;
• Dissemination of results.