The Home Situations Questionnaire-PDD version:
Factor structure and psychometric properties
M. Chowdhury,
1
M. G. Aman,
1
L. Scahill,
2
N. Swiezy,
3
L. E. Arnold,
1
L. Lecavalier,
1
C. Johnson,
4
B. Handen,
5
K. Stigler,
3
K. Bearss,
2
D. Sukhodolsky
2
& C. J. McDougle
3
1 Nisonger Center – UCEDD The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA,
2 Yale Child Study Center,Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA,
3 Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA,
4 Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
5 Department of Psychiatory, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Background The Home Situations Questionnaire
(HSQ) is a caregiver-rated scale designed to assess
behavioural non-compliance in everyday settings
that has been used in several studies in typically
developing children. Currently there is no accepted
measure of behavioural non-compliance in children
with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs).
Methods Investigators of the Research Units on
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Autism Network
modified the HSQ for children with PDDs by
adding five items (making total items), and used
it as the primary outcome measure in a clinical
trial. In the current investigation, we examined the
factor structure and psychometric properties of the
modified scale, the HSQ-PDD.
Results An exploratory factor analysis with oblique
rotations yielded two factors: ‘Socially Inflexible’
( items) and ‘Demand-Specific’ (six items). Item
content of both factors appeared to fit well with the
rubric of PDDs. Internal consistency, using Cron-
bach’s alpha statistic, was . for ‘Socially
Inflexible’, and . for ‘Demand-Specific.’ The
obtained sub-scales and HSQ-PDD Total score
showed moderate correlations with selected sub-
scales of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, Child
and Adolescent Symptom Inventory, and Children’s
Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, and low
correlations with the Vineland Adaptive Behavior
sub-scales.
Conclusions The HSQ-PDD appears to be well
suited for children with PDDs, although the
Demand-Specific sub-scale may benefit from addi-
tion of more items.We provided sub-scale means
and standard deviations for this relatively severe
group of children with PDDs, and discussed the
factor structure with respect to previous research.
Keywords autism, behavioural non-compliance,
factor structure, Home Situations Questionnaire,
pervasive developmental disorder
Introduction
The original Home Situations Questionnaire (HSQ;
Barkley & Edelbrock ) was developed to
examine the severity of disruptive and non-
compliant behaviour in children with disruptive
Correspondence: Ms Monali Chowdhury, Dodd Drive,
McCampbell Hall, Columbus, OH , USA (e-mail:
chowdhury.@osu.edu).
Journal of Intellectual Disability Research doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01259.x
pp –
281
© The Authors. Journal Compilation © Blackwell Publishing Ltd