There is a growing need for multicultural collaboration in child mental health services, training, and research. To facilitate such collaboration, this study tested the 8-syndrome structure of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) in 30 societies. Parents' CBCL ratings of 58,051 6- to 18-year-olds were subjected to confirmatory factor analyses, which were conducted separately for each society. Societies represented Asia; Africa; Australia; the Caribbean; Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Europe; the Middle East; and North America. Fit indices strongly supported the correlated 8-syndrome structure in each of 30 societies. The results support use of the syndromes in diverse societies.

This study compared parents' ratings of behavioral and emotional problems on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991;Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) for general population samples of children ages 6 to 16 from 31 societies (N = 55,508). Effect sizes for society ranged from .03 to .14. Effect sizes for gender were ≤ .01, with girls generally scoring higher on Internalizing problems and boys generally scoring higher on Externalizing problems. Effect sizes for age were ≤ .01 and varied across types of problems.Total Problems scores for 19 of 31 societies were within 1 SD of the overall mean of 22.5. Bisociety correlations for mean item scores averaged .74. The findings indicate that parents' reports of children's problems were similar in many ways across highly diverse societies. Nonetheless, effect sizes for society were larger than those for gender and age, indicating the need to take account of multicultural variations in parents' reports of children's problems.

International comparisons were conducted of preschool children's behavioral and emotional problems as reported on the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1½–5 by parents in 24 societies (N = 19,850). Item ratings were aggregated into scores on syndromes; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–oriented scales; a Stress Problems scale; and Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problems scales. Effect sizes for scale score differences among the 24 societies ranged from small to medium (3–12%). Although societies differed greatly in language, culture, and other characteristics, Total Problems scores for 18 of the 24 societies were within 7.1 points of the omnicultural mean of 33.3 (on a scale of 0–198). Gender and age differences, as well as gender and age interactions with society, were all very small (effect sizes < 1%). Across all pairs of societies, correlations between mean item ratings averaged .78, and correlations between internal consistency alphas for the scales averaged .92, indicating that the rank orders of mean item ratings and internal consistencies of scales were very similar across diverse societies.

The aims of this study were the Italian standardization of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL/4-18) and the Teacher's Report Form (TRF), the analysis of the internal consistency of the two instruments, and the evaluation of the agreement between parents' and teachers' ratings. A group of 1423 parents and 1464 teachers of children and adolescents aged 4 to 18 years, from three different provinces of Northern Italy, were randomly recruited. Boys scored higher than girls on the Externalizing scales on both CBCL and TRF, while there were no significant differences between the two sexes on the Internalizing scales. In general, internalizing problems increased with age, whereas externalizing behaviors decreased, mainly through a reduction of aggressive problems in older subjects. For most scales, low socioeconomic status was associated with high problem scores. Most scales of the CBCL and the TRF showed a satisfactory internal consistency, with higher α coefficients for overt behaviors. A low - to - moderate parents' and teachers' agreement was found, with the higher correlation found for the Attention Problems scale. Overall, the figures of this first standardization are in line with the results of most studies carried out in Western and Eastern countries, evidencing a good applicability of Achenbach's instruments in Italy.