Detecting psychopathology in young adults: the Young Adult Self Report, the General Health Questionnaire and the Symptom Checklist as screening instruments

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Abstract
This study compares the screening capacity of an age-adjusted child-oriented questionnaire, the Young Adult Self Report (YASR) with two adult-oriented questionnaires, the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) and Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) in a sample of young adults (18-25 years). The YASR performed just as well as the SCL-90 and both performed better than the GHQ-28. The relatively poor performance of the GHQ-28 compared with the YASR and SCL-90 could not be attributed to instrument characteristics or to the use of referral status as indicator of psychopathology. In assessing psychopathology in young adults an age-adjusted child-oriented instrument might be a good alternative to the existing adult-oriented instruments, especially when one takes into account the problem of data comparability over time in longitudinal studies in which children are followed into adulthood.