Discrepancies in youth self-report and case file report of maltreatment and association with internalizing and externalizing symptoms
Restricted (Penn State Only)
Author:
Cooley, Daryl Tanya
Graduate Program:
Psychology (PHD)
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
May 26, 2021
Committee Members:
Jose Soto, Major Field Member Michael Wolff, Major Field Member Christian Connell, Outside Unit & Field Member Yo Jackson, Chair & Dissertation Advisor Kristin Buss (She/Her), Program Head/Chair
Keywords:
child maltreatment informant discrepancies youth self-report case file
Abstract:
Childhood maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect) has been identified as a potential risk factor for the later development of psychopathology (Jaffee, 2017). However, there is no gold standard for identifying victims of child maltreatment, and when multiple informants – such as child protective services (CPS) case files and youth self-report – are used, these sources often disagree (e.g. Hambrick, Tunno, Gabrielli, Jackson, & Belz, 2014). The current study aimed to explore discrepancies between youth self-report and case file report on maltreatment type and severity and examine how these discrepancies related to youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms. This study used data from Studying Pathways to Adjustment and Resilience in Kids (SPARK), a federally funded study of youth living in foster care. Participants were 483 youth (48.0% female) between the ages of 8 and 18 (M = 12.8, SD = 3.0) and their caregivers. Results showed that agreement between informants was in the poor-to-fair agreement range for all types of maltreatment. Latent class analysis identified a 3-class solution with those in the “agree maltreatment” and “self-report only” classes having significantly higher internalizing and externalizing symptoms than those in the “neither informant/case file only” class. The results from this study have implications for how to navigate discrepant informants and the possible differential links to youth mental health needs when using different types of informants as sources for child maltreatment experiences. Implications and future directions are discussed.
