A matter of perspective? Differences between adolescent-parent and parent-teacher pairs in responses to the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire using a Scottish national cohort study

Although multiple-respondent scoring methods are increasingly recommended for youth mental health questionnaires, utilisation of parent-only responses remains common in survey research. The substantive, epistemological and methodological ramifications of this perspective gap remain under-explored despite the widespread adoption of youth psychometrics in social survey datasets. Modelling the impact of respondent pair identities on inter-respondent discrepancies in youth mental health questionnaires reveals “whose” responses differ and how measurement error may be patterned in single-respondent models. Comparing Goodman’s Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) responses from parents, teachers and adolescents themselves, we apply latent difference score modelling to parent-adolescent (age 14, n=2,943) and parent teacher (age 10, n=1,833) pairs from the Growing Up in Scotland birth cohort study and present significant inter-respondent differences in behavioural perceptions between these groups. Higher levels of difficulties are associated with larger inter-respondent discrepancy levels. The impact of gender, housing tenure, finances,family composition, maternal mental health and education on score discrepancies vary in direction, magnitude and significance between SDQ behavioural components. Therefore, discrepancies depend upon characteristics of the each measured behaviour, not a global propensity to dis/agreement. Evaluating the implications of these findings, we advocate for the inclusion of youth self-reporting in survey datasets and discuss how to caveat research with the potential impact of respondent identities on missing perspectives when multiple respondent data are unavailable.