IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0278385.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measurement invariance of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire across socioeconomic status and ethnicity from ages 3 to 17 years: A population cohort study

Author

Listed:
  • Umar Toseeb
  • Olakunle Oginni
  • Richard Rowe
  • Praveetha Patalay

Abstract

Mental health inequalities along ethnic and socioeconomic groupings are well documented. The extent to which these observed inequalities are genuine or reflect measurement differences is unclear. In the current study we sought to investigate this in a large population-based sample of children and adolescents in the United Kingdom. The main objective of the study was to establish whether the parent-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was invariant across ethnicity and socioeconomic status groupings at six time points from 3 to 17 years (maximum N = 17,274). First, we fitted a series of confirmatory factor analysis models to the data and confirmed that the five-factor structure (emotional problems; peer problems; conduct problems; hyperactivity/inattention; and prosocial behaviour) had acceptable fit at ages 5, 7, 11, and 14 years. Next, we tested configural, metric, and scalar invariance at these time points and demonstrated scalar invariance across household income, parent highest education, and ethnicity categories. The five-factor structure did not fit well at ages 3 and 17 years; therefore invariance was not tested at these ages. These findings suggest the parent-report SDQ can be used to measure socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in mental health from ages 5–14 years but more consideration is required outside these ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Umar Toseeb & Olakunle Oginni & Richard Rowe & Praveetha Patalay, 2022. "Measurement invariance of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire across socioeconomic status and ethnicity from ages 3 to 17 years: A population cohort study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(12), pages 1-13, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0278385
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278385
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278385&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0278385?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fagg, James & Curtis, Sarah & Stansfeld, Stephen & Congdon, Peter, 2006. "Psychological distress among adolescents, and its relationship to individual, family and area characteristics in East London," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 636-648, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lee, Min-Ah, 2009. "Neighborhood residential segregation and mental health: A multilevel analysis on Hispanic Americans in Chicago," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 1975-1984, June.
    2. Fan, Yingling & Chen, Qian, 2012. "Family functioning as a mediator between neighborhood conditions and children's health: Evidence from a national survey in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(12), pages 1939-1947.
    3. Abada, Teresa & Hou, Feng & Ram, Bali, 2007. "Racially mixed neighborhoods, perceived neighborhood social cohesion, and adolescent health in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(10), pages 2004-2017, November.
    4. Bécares, Laia & Nazroo, James & Albor, Christo & Chandola, Tarani & Stafford, Mai, 2012. "Examining the differential association between self-rated health and area deprivation among white British and ethnic minority people in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(4), pages 616-624.
    5. Min-Ah Lee, 2019. "Volunteering and Happiness: Examining the Differential Effects of Volunteering Types According to Household Income," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 795-814, March.
    6. Ivory, Vivienne C. & Collings, Sunny C. & Blakely, Tony & Dew, Kevin, 2011. "When does neighbourhood matter? Multilevel relationships between neighbourhood social fragmentation and mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(12), pages 1993-2002, June.
    7. Zilanawala, Afshin & Sacker, Amanda & Nazroo, James & Kelly, Yvonne, 2015. "Ethnic differences in children's socioemotional difficulties: Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 95-106.
    8. Cummins, Steven & Curtis, Sarah & Diez-Roux, Ana V. & Macintyre, Sally, 2007. "Understanding and representing 'place' in health research: A relational approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1825-1838, November.
    9. Baranyi, Gergő & Di Marco, Martín Hernán & Russ, Tom C. & Dibben, Chris & Pearce, Jamie, 2021. "The impact of neighbourhood crime on mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    10. Dinwiddie, Gniesha Y. & Gaskin, Darrell J. & Chan, Kitty S. & Norrington, Janette & McCleary, Rachel, 2013. "Residential segregation, geographic proximity and type of services used: Evidence for racial/ethnic disparities in mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 67-75.
    11. Fagg, James H. & Curtis, Sarah E. & Cummins, Steven & Stansfeld, Stephen A. & Quesnel-Vallée, Amélie, 2013. "Neighbourhood deprivation and adolescent self-esteem: Exploration of the ‘socio-economic equalisation in youth’ hypothesis in Britain and Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 168-177.
    12. Pickett, Kate E. & Shaw, Richard J. & Atkin, Karl & Kiernan, Kathleen E. & Wilkinson, Richard G., 2009. "Ethnic density effects on maternal and infant health in the Millennium Cohort Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1476-1483, November.
    13. Vivienne Ivory & Karen Witten & Clare Salmond & En-Yi Lin & Ru Quan You & Tony Blakely, 2012. "The New Zealand Index of Neighbourhood Social Fragmentation: Integrating Theory and Data," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(4), pages 972-988, April.
    14. Takagi, Daisuke & Kondo, Katsunori & Kondo, Naoki & Cable, Noriko & Ikeda, Ken’ichi & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2013. "Social disorganization/social fragmentation and risk of depression among older people in Japan: Multilevel investigation of indices of social distance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 81-89.
    15. Lima, Julie & Caughy, Margaret & Nettles, Saundra M. & O'Campo, Patricia J., 2010. "Effects of cumulative risk on behavioral and psychological well-being in first grade: Moderation by neighborhood context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(8), pages 1447-1454, October.
    16. Debrand, Thierry & Pierre, Aurélie & Allonier, Caroline & Lucas-Gabrielli, Véronique, 2012. "Critical urban areas, deprived areas and neighbourhood effects on health in France," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 92-101.
    17. Afshin Zilanawala & Aprile Benner & Laia Bécares, 2019. "Race/ethnic inequalities in early adolescent development in the United Kingdom and United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(6), pages 121-154.
    18. Kenisha Russell Jonsson & Joan Busfield & Marita Södergren & Miia Karen & Nicholas Kofi Adjei, 2020. "Social Capital, Deprivation and Psychological Well-Being among Young Adolescents: A Multilevel Study from England and Wales," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-19, May.
    19. Roman Pabayo & Michel Janosz & Sherri Bisset & Ichiro Kawachi, 2014. "School Social Fragmentation, Economic Deprivation and Social Cohesion and Adolescent Physical Inactivity: A Longitudinal Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(6), pages 1-12, June.
    20. Fagg, James & Curtis, Sarah & Stansfeld, Stephen A. & Cattell, Vicky & Tupuola, Ann-Marie & Arephin, Muna, 2008. "Area social fragmentation, social support for individuals and psychosocial health in young adults: Evidence from a national survey in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 242-254, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0278385. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.