Adolescents not present on the day of the survey were asked to fill in the questionnaire.

A project assistant attended to hand out the questionnaires, provide information and answer questions. In 2001, the participants completed a paper-and-pencil self-administered questionnaire at school during two classroom lessons. All students in Grade 10 were invited to participate in the surveys. Collections of cross-sectional data were conducted in 20 among 15- to 16-year olds (Grade 10 students) in Hedmark County, Norway. The present study is based on the data retrieved from the Norwegian Youth Health Surveys, conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The correlation ( r) between the HSCL-10 and the CONOR Mental Health Index was 0.70.

Another Norwegian study among adults aged â¥30 years compared the CONOR Mental Health Index with the HSCL-10 and the Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale (10). They also reported a very high correlation (0.97) between the HSCL-25 and the HSCL-10, with a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 98% for the HSCL-10 using the HSCL-25 (cut-off 1.75) as criterion. (9) concluded that, HSCL-10 and HSCL-5 perform almost as well as the full version for adolescents aged â¥15 years. The HSCL-25 has been evaluated for adults and adolescents using factor analysis (6,7), and the outcomes from self-reports have been compared with diagnostic interviews (8) and other instruments. Among adolescents, primarily, the short versions have been used (5, 10 and 25 items). The HSCL-10 is commonly used in many western studies and has a history dating back to 1950s (6).

The HSCL-25 is considered to tap information about general psychological distress. Several versions of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL) instrument, of different lengths (5â∹0 items), have been used across a wide range of settings. Currently, it is available in different versions and used in the studies of adults and adolescents in the general population. The Hopkins Checklist was originally intended to study the efficacy of psychotropic drugs and had questions referring to symptomatic behaviour of outpatients in adult populations (6). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire is used to measure both externalizing and internalizing problems among adolescents (5). One of the most well-known questionnaires is the HBSC checklist of subjective health complaints, which measures psychosomatic symptoms (4).

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