Emotional symptoms in inattentive primary school children: a population-based study.

Objective: The present study investigates teacher and parent reports of inattention and emotional symptoms in 6,229 primary school children.

Methods: The assessment included the Emotional Symptoms subscale and the Impact scale from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the inattention items from the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham IV Questionnaire.

Results: Children defined as inattentive showed a high risk of being defined as high scorers on the Emotional Symptoms subscale. A high score on both the Inattention and Emotional Symptoms subscales was associated with a high impact score. Teachers but not parents reported a higher risk of such co-occurrence of symptoms in girls than in boys.

Conclusions: Inattentive children should be screened for emotional problems by use of the multi-informants method.