Mental health problems in a large representative sample of children and adolescents: Prevalence, associations with problematic substance use and psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

Lutz Wartberg, Rainer Thomasius, Nicolas Arnaud

Mental health problems are already widespread in childhood and adolescence. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is an internationally widely used instrument for assessing mental health problems and prosocial behavior in children and adolescents. Particularly, the Total Difficulties score (TDS) from the SDQ (calculated from the sum of all problem scales) is considered a good estimator for mental heal…