Cross-cultural validation: Sinhala versions of pediatric symptom checklists for screening adolescent psychosocial problems

Background: Psychosocial problems can significantly impact adolescents' personal and social functioning. Early identification of these problems through a brief checklist can alter the life trajectory of an individual. The Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) and the Youth Self-reported Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-Y) are screening tools commonly used to assess psychosocial problems among children and adolescents.Aims: This study aimed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Sinhala versions of these tools; S-PSC and S/PSC-Y, in identifying psychosocial problems among adolescents of army war widows.Methods: The PSC and the PSC-Y, 35-item screening tools originally developed and validated in the United States were initially translated, culturally adapted using modified Delphi process and tested for judgmental validity. The PSC and PSC-Y criterion validity was appraised against clinical diagnoses by a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, with 156 purposively selected adolescents aged 10-19 years from the Western Province of Sri Lanka. The study used the test-retest method and internal consistency analysis to assess reliability.Results: The judgmental validity testing of both tools revealed good psychometric properties across all items. The overall Sinhala version of the PSC demonstrated a sensitivity of 87.5% (95% CI=71.0-96.5) and a specificity of 91.9% (95% CI=85.7-96.1). The overall Sinhala version of the PSC-Y demonstrated a sensitivity of 84.4% (95% CI=67.2-94.7) and a specificity of 70.2% (95% CI=61.3-78.0). Both tools showed satisfactory internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.88. Correlation coefficients for the Sinhala version of PSC ranged from 0.75 to 0.90, and for the Sinhala version of PSC-Y, from 0.71 to 0.79.Conclusions: The Sinhala versions of the PSC (S-PSC) and PSC-Y (S/PSC-Y) are valid and reliable tools for screening psychosocial problems among 10-19-year-olds in Sri Lanka.