Page 33 - Age of onset of disruptive behavior of residentially treated adolescents -Sjoukje de Boer

information of the health scans at the second grade (the nursery school part) of the
Dutch school system. In the YHC procedure this was the first time that teachers were
asked which children needed extra attention because of concerns about their health or 2 behavior. Children were also examined by a doctor or nurse. In the present study the remarks of teachers and the amnesic information from the health care doctor or nurse
were used. The YHC professionals had to use a format with defined headings: “Appetite”, “Sleep”, “Toilet training”, “Playing solo”, “Playing with others”, “General impression”, “Pathology” and “Psychosocial functioning”. Apart from the remarks
written under these headings, the files also contained additional remarks on developmental issues that were considered relevant by the teachers and the health
care professionals. All of these, often sketchy written, remarks were categorized by the researchers in four categories: “Remarks indicating disruptive behavior”, “Positive remarks”, “Neutral remarks” and “No remarks”. Examples of remarks indicating disruptive behavior were: “Bad concentration, doesn’t listen”, “Motivation and behavior problems”, “Black sheep because of aggression”, “Needs a lot of attention”,
“Has many conflicts”, “Very noisy child”. All remarks like “Does very well”, “She likes school”, “Has many friends” were labeled positive. All other remarks like: “Wears glasses”, “Does often have a cold”, “Sight of left eye needs attention” were seen as
neutral from the perspective of this study. The remarks were categorized without knowledge of the background (patient or control) of the respondent. The categorized remarks from teachers and health care practitioners concerning the inpatients and the controls were compared. Children with one or more “remarks indicating disruptive behavior” before or at age five were considered as possibly belonging to the LCP
group.
Statistical analysis
All analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 17.01 (SPSS, 2008). Chi-square tests were used to examine differences in categorical variables. ROC-curves were calculated to investigate the sensitivity and specificity of the remarks from teachers and YHC professionals in discriminating the inpatient and the control group.
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