Measuring irritability across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood: an investigation of measurement invariance by age, sex, and informant.

Irritability is a transdiagnostic phenomenon, frequently present in youth mental health services, and associated with multiple adverse outcomes. Irritability research suggests developmental, sex, and informant differences, but robust assessment requires comparison of the same or equivalent measures....

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Publicado en:European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 121 - 133
Autores principales: Bekiropoulou, Aikaterini, Eyre, Olga, Heron, Jon, Thapar, Anita, Riglin, Lucy
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Springer Nature Jan2026
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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          Bekiropoulou, Aikaterini
          Eyre, Olga
          Heron, Jon
          Thapar, Anita
          Riglin, Lucy
        affil: https://ror.org/03kk7td41 Wolfson Centre for Young People's Mental Health and Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University, Hadyn Ellis Building, Maindy Road, CF24 4HQ, Cardiff, UK
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          Affect In Infancy and Childhood
          Affect In Adolescence
          Affect In Adulthood
          Sex Factors
          Age Factors
          Psychometrics
          Human
          Male
          Child
          Adolescence
          Young Adult
          Funding Source
          Prospective Studies
          Descriptive Statistics
          Data Analysis Software
          Factor Analysis
          Comparative Studies
          Chi Square Test
          United Kingdom
          Psychological Well-Being
          Parents
          Scales
          Child: 6-12 years
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
          Male
      ab: Irritability is a transdiagnostic phenomenon, frequently present in youth mental health services, and associated with multiple adverse outcomes. Irritability research suggests developmental, sex, and informant differences, but robust assessment requires comparison of the same or equivalent measures. Studies on irritability measurement invariance (equivalence) across age, sex, and informant remain limited. This research investigated measurement invariance across age, sex, and informant (parent/self), in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Primary analyses assessed age (N = 9,809) and sex (N = 9,803) invariance in irritability measured using the parent-rated Development And Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) at ages 7–25, and informant invariance (parent- versus self-report) was tested at age 25, separately for males (N = 2,494) and females (N = 3,408). We did not find evidence of even weak (metric) invariance across age, indicating that the DAWBA-measured irritability may not be developmentally comparable. Findings by sex were mixed, with strict invariance suggested at age 13, strong at age 7, weak at age 25, and not even weak at ages 10 and 15, suggesting that the DAWBA may not always capture the same irritability construct across sex. Informant invariance levels were measure- specific. The DAWBA demonstrated strict invariance across informants for both males and females, suggesting equivalent interpretation of irritability items and similar residuals at age 25 for self- and parent-reports. However secondary informant analyses, assessed separately for males (N = 2,505) and females (N = 3,415) in the Affective Reactivity Index (ARI) at age 25, did not support even weak invariance for males, but found evidence of strict invariance for females. Our findings suggest that for the DAWBA, comparisons of mean irritability scores are likely valid across parent-/self-reports at age 25, but incomparable across age and sex; for the ARI, parent-/self-reports may be comparable at age 25 for females, but not males.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
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        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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