Spanish-language Services Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA): Reliability of parent and adolescent reports

Objective: To assess test-retest reliability of the service utilization screening section of the Services Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA) interview among Spanish-speaking parents and adolescents, correspondence between parent and adolescent reports, and the correlation between reliability and participants' demographic and service use characteristics. Method: The English SACA was translated and administered from September 1999 through January 2000 in Los Angeles County, California, on two separate occasions to eligible parents with a child (4-17 years old) who was a client of a local public mental health authority. Adolescents of these parents (12-17 years old) were also interviewed. Reliability was measured by the K statistic. Results: Adult and adolescent reports about lifetime and previous year service setting use exhibited good reliability, but concordance of parents and adolescents did not. Children's service utilization appears to be correlated with reliability of parent reports, and child gender appears to be correlated with reliability of adolescent reports. Conclusion: The SACA appears to be a useful tool for screening Spanish-speaking families about child and adolescent mental health service use. These findings must be considered preliminary until replicated in a larger sample of culturally diverse Spanish-speaking families.