Agreement and Discrepancies of Self- and Mother Reported Psychopathology from Adolescence Until Emerging Adulthood: Results of a Prospective Longitudinal Study

Discrepancies between self- and collateral reports of mental disorders are common and contain relevant information, yet the longitudinal development of informant discrepancies and associated factors remain unknown. The current study examined agreement and discrepancies between self- and mother reported child mental health problems in N = 224 mother-child-dyads in adolescence (T1; M = 14.2 years, 52% female) and emerging adulthood (T2; M = 22.3 years). It was investigated whether maternal and child current psychological distress, mother-child relationship, child biological sex, and the family's socioeconomic status at T1 were associated with discrepancies at T1 and T2. Agreement was moderate at T1 (r = .35-0.40) and high at T2 (r = .50-0.53). No significant differences were found between internalizing (T1 r = .35; T2 r = .53) and externalizing problems (T1 r = .40, T2 r = .50). More than half of mother-child dyads showed no relevant discrepancy at T1 and T2, and discrepancies reduced over time. Discrepancies at T1 were associated with child psychological distress when children reported higher levels of mental health problems, and with male sex when mothers reported higher child symptom levels. The discrepancy at T2 could be predicted by the mother-child relationship, current child psychological distress, and discrepancy at T1 only when mothers reported higher levels of child mental health problems than children. Although agreement increases from adolescence to emerging adulthood, both reports contain incremental information. When selecting informants and interpreting discrepant reports, the direction of the discrepancy, current child psychological distress, the mother-child relationship, and child sex should be considered.