A rating scale for the severity of psychopathology in children.

The Scale for Assessing Severity of the Psychopathology in Children (SSPC) is intended to measure the overall psychosocial impairment caused to children and adolescents by psychic disorders. The scale contains 3 items (number of impaired areas of psychosocial functioning and duration of the modifications of child's behaviour; decrease of school performances below the expected level according to IQ; subjective distress caused by the psychic disorder either to the child or to the family leading to call for medical help) defining a single dimension. Each item is scaled on four degrees of impairment and described behaviourally in a detailed way. The total score summed over the 3 items corresponds to four levels of severity of the psychopathology. Interrater reliability, sensitivity to change and concurrent validity of the SSPC are examined over three studies.