Parent and Teacher (Dis)Agreement on the Conners Rating Scale: Revised-Long Format

Abstract

The Conners Rating Scale: Revised-Long version (CRS: R-L) has been used widely in clinic and research settings to measure child behavior and symptoms of attention deficit hyperac- tivity disorder (ADHD). Despite evidence of poor agreement between parent and teacher reports of child internalizing and externalizing problems, no study to date has examined the levels of agreement between parent and teacher reports of child behavior using the CRS: R-L. Our aim was to measure the level of agreement between parent and teacher perception of child emotion and behavior problems using the CRS: R-L. A total of 591 New Zealand European mothers and their 7-year-old children participated in Phase 4 of the Auckland Birthweight Collaborative (ABC) study. Child behavior was measured when the children were 7 years old using the parent and teacher versions of the CRS: R-L. Parent and teacher agreement was analyzed using weighted kappa coefficient, Pearson correlation coefficient, and Bland-Altman plots. Agreement between parent and teacher reports of child behavior was found to range between poor and low. Agreement decreased with reports of increasing behavioral problems and was generally higher for externalizing subscales and lower for in- ternalizing subscales.