Focus Area: Behavioral and Attention Symptoms
Overview: The PSC-35 is a broad screener and outcome measure for behavioral and emotional symptoms in children and adolescents. It comes in youth report and parent report versions.
Total number of items: Thirty Five
Standardized cadence: Four Weeks
Estimated completion time: Five to eight minutes
Supported subscales: Internalizing, Externalizing, and Attention
Age range: 9+
Scoring and interpretation: A score of 28 or greater on the total score is indicative of the child having more problems than other kids of that age. A score of 7 or greater on both the Attention and Externalizing subscales indicate high risk for ADHD and conduct problems, respectively. A score of 5 or greater on the Internalizing subscale indicates high risk for mood disorder(s).
Reliability/Validity: Validity: 68% of the children identified as PSC positive will also be identified as impaired by an experienced clinician and, conversely, 95% of the children identified as PSC negative will be identified as unimpaired (Jellinek et al. 1988). Similarly high rates of validity have been reported for the PSC-Y and several of the PSC translations. Test/retest reliability of the PSC ranges from r = .84 - .91. Over time, case/not case classification ranges from 83%-87% and kappa = .84 (Jellinek et al. 1988; Murphy et al. 1992). Studies (Murphy & Jellinek 1988; Murphy et al. 1996) indicate strong internal consistency of the PSC items (Cronbach alpha = .91) and highly significant (p < 0.001) correlations between individual PSC items and positive PSC screening scores.
Detailed information about the measure, along with original research