Evidence of Need to Use Self-Report Measures of Psychosocial Functioning in Older Children and Adolescents with Voiding Dysfunction

Purpose: Previous reports have revealed significantly higher rates of psychosocial difficulties in children and adolescents with voiding dysfunction compared to their healthy peers. However, these findings are based solely on parental reporting and do not include self-reporting of psychosocial problems in older pediatric patients.

Materials and methods: We collected data from 200 consecutive patients 11 to 16 years old during outpatient clinic visits. Patients completed the Pediatric Symptom Checklist-Youth Report, parents completed the parental report of the same measure, and patients and parents collaboratively completed the Dysfunctional Voiding Scoring System.

Results: Of the patients 25.5% met the cutoff score for clinically significant levels of psychosocial difficulties. However, only a fourth of those patients met the cutoff on the parent and self-report measures. Additionally patient self-reports of internalizing and externalizing problems were significantly related to severity of voiding dysfunction.

Conclusions: Screening for psychosocial problems in older children and adolescents with voiding dysfunction should include reports from the parent and the child. In our sample 37.3% of patients needing a mental health followup would have been missed if only 1 version of the measure had been administered.