4.4 Relationships Among Syndromes

Tables 4.3 through 4.6 show the intercorrelations among the syndrome scales in the aggregated 1994 through 1996 data, overall and by age and gender group. Inspection of the tables suggests substantial intercorrelations among the scales. Mean and median correlations for the different combinations of age and gender range from .50 to .56 (Table 4.7). Achenbach (1991) reported a moderate degree of relationship among syndromes in the nonclinical sample. The mean correlation among the eight subscales was .43 (median, .44) for females and .39 (median, .37) for males. Correlations ranged from a low of .18 between Social Problems and Delinquent Behavior for females and .23 for males, to a high of .63 between Anxiety/Depression and Attention Problems for females (and .61 for males). On average, the intercorrelations in the national data are higher than those in Achenbach's (1991) norming samples.

Generally, patterns of association among the various syndromes were somewhat higher in the national sample than in Achenbach's norming sample. The Achenbach non-clinical samples excluded adolescents who had received clinical treatment or who were enrolled in remedial classes in the past year. These adolescents were not excluded from the NHSDA data. The patterns of association indicated here are based on a national probability sample and may be considered representative of the non-institutionalized adolescent population in the United States.

This page was last updated on August 05, 2008.

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