Validation of an Arabic multi-informant psychiatric diagnostic interview for children and adolescents: development and Well Being Assessment-Arabic (DAWBA-Arabic).

BACKGROUND: Countries in the Arab region lack a valid Arabic psychiatric diagnostic interview for children and adolescents. We set out to establish the diagnostic validity of the Arabic version of the Development and Well Being Assessment (DAWBA-Arabic), a multi-informant structured interview for predicting DSM-IV-TR diagnoses. METHODS: The DAWBA was translated, updated, and administered to 45 participants (child and adolescent psychiatric outpatients and their parents) as part of a clinic registry. Two clinicians, blinded to their respective diagnoses, formulated the DAWBA diagnoses. Participants also underwent a clinical evaluation by a child and adolescent psychiatrist who generated clinical diagnoses according to the DSM-IV-TR. RESULTS: Inter-rater reliabilities were .93, .82, and .72 for disruptive disorders, mood disorders and anxiety disorders respectively. Agreement between DAWBA and clinical diagnoses was substantial for disruptive disorders (κ=.0.82) and mood disorders (κ=0.74), and moderate for anxiety disorders (κ=0.46). CONCLUSION: The DAWBA-Arabic could serve as a valid and reliable clinical tool for assessing psychiatric disorders among children and adolescents in the Arab region.

Reliability and validity of the Arabic Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) in a clinical sample.

This study aimed at investigating the reliability and validity of the Arabic Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) as a first child and adolescent anxiety screening tool in the Arab World. The English parent (SCARED-P) and child (SCARED-C) versions were translated into Arabic and administered along with the Arabic Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to 77 parents and 67 children attending a Psychiatry clinic. DSM-IV-TR diagnoses were made by a psychiatrist without knowledge of the scale scores. Internal consistency was confirmed by Cronbach's α=0.92 for SCARED-P and 0.91 for SCARED-C. Their subscales had internal consistencies between 0.65 and 0.89. Parent-child agreement was r=0.67, p<0.001. SCARED-P demonstrated good discriminant validity between participants with anxiety disorders and those with other psychiatric disorders (t(72)=3.13, p=0.003). For SCARED-C, this difference was significant when participants with depressive disorders were excluded (t(43)=2.58, p=0.01). Convergent validity was evident through a significant correlation between SCARED-P and the parent SDQ emotional subscale (r=0.70, p<0.001), and SCARED-C and the child SDQ emotional subscale (r=0.70, p<0.001). Divergent validity with the SDQ hyperactivity subscale was observed as no significant correlation was found. Overall, the Arabic SCARED demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in a clinical sample in Lebanon.