Am J Psychiatry 1992; 149:1539-1542
Copyright © 1992 by American Psychiatric Association
Cross-cultural differences in rating hyperactive-disruptive behaviors in children
EM Mann, Y Ikeda, CW Mueller, A Takahashi, KT Tao, E Humris, BL Li and D Chin
Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Honolulu 96826.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the extent to which the reported variations across
countries in the prevalence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are
due to cultural differences among raters, the authors examined the degree
to which mental health professionals in four countries differed in their
ratings of hyperactive-disruptive behaviors in children. METHOD: Mental
health professionals from China (N = 8), Indonesia (N = 12), Japan (N = 9),
and the United States (N = 8) rated the presence and degree of
hyperactive-disruptive behaviors in standardized videotape vignettes of
four 8-year-old boys participating in individual and group activities.
RESULTS: Chinese and Indonesian clinicians gave significantly higher scores
for hyperactive-disruptive behaviors than did their Japanese and American
colleagues. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that perceptions of
hyperactivity vary significantly across countries even if uniform rating
criteria are applied. Without correction for these perceptual differences,
cross- cultural prevalence rates of hyperactivity may not be comparable.
