Validação estrutural da escala de problemas de atenção da Teacher's Report Form em uma amostra brasileira

Abstract

The attention de cit hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common childhood behavioral syndromes. Although clinical evaluation is considered as the gold standard in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, in epidemiological studies this evaluation is rarely used for practical and nancial reasons. In this study we use psychometric instruments to screening the disorders. It is important to investigate whether these instruments are suitable for measuring the proposed problem. This study aims to determine the structural validity of Teacher's Report Form for attention problems applied to a sample of 445 children of schools in São Gonçalo/RJ. It was applied the con rmatory factor analysis to validate the factor structure. The structural equation models was used to verify hypotheses of the relationship between attention de cit hyperactivity disorder subtypes and other aspects of mental health. The bifactor factor model was the most suitable to explain the factor structure. It presented the best t quality scores for con rmatory factor analysis than other tested structures. The instrument's factor structure was also appropriate because corroborated most of the association's assumptions between subtypes of attention problems and other aspects of mental health. It can be inferred that the combined attention problems subtype would be the more serious because it was correlated with internalizing problems, externalizing and lower intelligence quotient. However, some symptoms were not adequate for the dimension as established in its original version, they were redundant to other symptoms or slightly less expressive loads on its speci c factors.