Psychometric Evaluation of the Malay Version of the Multidimensional Beck Youth Inventories-2 (BYI-2 Malay): Measuring Self-Concept, Anxiety, Depression, Anger, and Disruptive Behaviour among Adolescents in Sheltered Homes

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Malay version of the Beck Youth Inventories-Second Edition (BYI-2 Malay) in a sample of adolescents living in the nongovernment-run sheltered homes. In this study, 300 adolescents completed the BYI-2 Malay, the Beck Depression Inventory-Malay (BDI-Malay), the Beck Anxiety Inventory-Malay (BAI-Malay), the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Malay (ATQ-Malay), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale-Malay (RSES-Malay). The internal consistency estimates for the BYI-2 Malay scales, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, were excellent: .86 for self-concept, .89 for anxiety, .92 for depression, .92 for anger, and .92 for disruptive behaviours. The five-factor model of the BYI-2 Malay (i.e., Self-Concept, Anxiety, Depression, Anger, and Disruptive Behaviour) showed a good fit to the data. Evidence for concurrent validity was established between the BYI-2 Malay Self-Concept scale and the RSES-Malay (r = .41), between the BYI-2 Malay Anxiety scale and the BAI-Malay (r = .60), and between the BYI-2 Malay Depression scale and the BDI-Malay (r = .69). The evidence for convergent validity was established between the BYI-2 Malay Anger scale and the ATQ-Malay (r = .71), and between BYI- 2 Malay Disruptive Behaviour scale and the ATQ Malay (r =.52). The present findings shed light on the utility of the BYI-2 Malay in aiding clinicians as well as therapists for identifying multiple symptoms of social and emotional problems in adolescents.

Exploring relations between resilience, trauma and depression in children

Defining psychological resilience is a challenge for researchers and mental health professionals. More recent understandings of resilience define it as the capacity of a dynamic system to successfully adapt to disruptive factors that threaten the sustainability or development of that system. The present study aimed to examine the relationships between psychological trauma, depression and certain factors of resilience in a clinical sample of children (N = 103). To test the hypotheses, the following measuring instruments were used: the Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSCC), Beck Youth Inventories - Second Edition, Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28), as well as assessment of psychotraumatization. The results were not quite consistent with previous studies of resilience, so that the hypothesis that abused, non-traumatised children would have significantly higher scores on the resilience measure than abused children was not confirmed. The results do suggest that abuse is more likely to occur among children whose caregivers do not provide care for their physical and psychological needs. It has also been confirmed that caregivers’ neglect of psychological needs is related to more significant negative psychological outcomes than caregivers’ neglect of physical needs. Additionally, the study found a greater negative correlation between resilience and depression in traumatised children than in non-traumatised children.

Adaptation of Stirling children’s well-being scale (SCWBS) in Bangladesh context

The purpose of this study was to adapt Stirling Children’s Well-Being Scale (SCWBS) for measuring well-being of children of Bangladesh. Data were collected from 238 students, ages between 10 to 16 years of three different schools of Dhaka city. Psychometric properties were measured through Cronbach’s alpha (0.746), split-half (0.782), test-retest (0.791), which were satisfactory, respectively at 0.05, 0.05, and 0.01 level of significance. The demonstration of construct validity with Beck Self-Concept Inventory for Youth (BSCI-Y) and Beck Anxiety Inventory for Youth (BAI-Y) (two subtests of Adapted Bangla Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment Scale) were 0.668 and –0.350, respectively, and item-total correlation (0.258 to 0.451) was also satisfactory. Thus psychometric results support that Bangla SCWBS is suitable for use in Bangladesh context. Mental health professionals can use Bangla SCWBS as a useful tool to assess changes in children’s wellbeing from a positive psychological perspective. Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 25(2): 161-167, 2016 (July)

Evidence for the Construct Validities of the Beck Youth Inventories with Child Psychiatric Outpatients

To provide further information about the construct validities of the Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment, these inventories were administered to 35 female and 65 male outpatients whose ages ranged from 7 to 12 years and who were diagnosed with various psychiatric disorders. The Children's Depression Inventory was also administered, and the children were rated by a parent with the Conners' Parent Rating Scale–Revised: Short Form. The scores on the former inventory were more positively correlated with the scores on the Beck Youth Depression Inventory ( r = .81, p < .001) than with scores on the four other Beck Youth Inventories, and those on the Conners Oppositional scale were comparably correlated with the scores on the Beck Youth Disruptive Behavior ( r = .49, p < .001) and Anger ( r = .41, p < .001) Inventories. These latter correlations were higher than those for scores on the Oppositional scale with the scores on the three other Beck scales.