D (2004) Quantifying clinical judgment in the assessment of adolescent psychopathology: Reliability, validity and factor structure of the Child Behavior Checklist for Clinician-Report

The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the Child Be-havior Checklist (CBCL) as completed by doctoral-level clinicians in the treat-ment of adolescents. We asked 294 randomly selected, experienced psychiatrists and psychologists to describe a patient aged 14 to 18 in treat-ment for personality pathology. Clinicians completed the CBCL (parent-report version) andmeasures of adaptive functioning, personality pathology, and family and developmental history, which served as criterion variables to test the validity of the CBCL as completed by clinicians. Most CBCL scales demonstrated acceptable reliability. Validity estimates were impressive, and the data revealed clinically meaningful associations between specific CBCL scale scores and developmental and family history variables. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the factorial structure of the clinician-report CBCL resembled that of the parent-report CBCL, with the exception of a substan-tially lower correlation between higher order internalizing and externalizing factors. The data suggest that clinical judgment can be both reliable and valid when quantified using psychometrically sound instruments. ©2003Wile