PARENTAL ASSESSMENT OF CHILDREN WITH INDICATIONS OF BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS IN LOWER GRADES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL

Abstract

Behavioral disorders significantly disrupt children’s daily functioning and can greatly affect children’s de- velopment. Due to the high incidence of behavioral disorders in children and adolescents, it is important to examine parental assessment of the presence of symptoms of various internalized and externalized disorders. The main aim of this study was to investigate parental assessment of the prevalence of ADHD, emotional and antisocial disorders in primary school children and to compare the established prevalence with data from other countries. The study involved 109 parents of primary school students from the Osi- jek-Baranja County, of whom 91.7% were female and 8.3% were male. The parents completed an online questionnaire, which consisted of the NICHQ Vanderbilt scale (Wolraich et al., 2003). According to the results, parents assess more symptoms of ADHD and fewer symptoms of antisocial disorder, and more symptoms of antisocial disorder and fewer symptoms of emotional disorders in children. Also, this study found that there is no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of ADHD, antisocial and emo- tional disorders assessed by parents in Croatia compared to representative studies in the world and the USA. The role of parents is of utmost importance in diagnosing these disorders because parents are the first to notice their child’s difficulties. Parents need to be educated about children’s behavioral disorders so they could be able to react in a timely manner and seek professional help.