Reliability and Validity of the Turkish Version of the Child Dissociative Checklist

Abstract

Objective: This paper investigated the psychometric characteristics of the Turkish Version of the Child Dissociative Checklist (CDC). Method: The CDC was translated by the authors and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. It was administered to a sample consisting of 9 DID, 28 DDNOS, 35 anxiety disorder, 22 mood disorder, 22 ADHD, and 88 non-psychiatric comparison children and adolescents (N = 204, age range 6-17 years). Parents or caretakers completed the measure at the hospital for patient groups. Controls were recruited through school. A 5-month test-retest was performed on a mixed patient and control group (N = 34). Results: The test-retest coefficient was 0.59. The split-half was 0.85. For the whole sample (N = 204), Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.89. Spearman rank-order correlations were calculated between each item and item-corrected score totals and were all significant at p < 0.001 except for item 17. A Kruskal-Wallis comparison across the different groups with pair-wise comparisons was highly significant. The median score of CDC was 25.0 in DID, 16.5 in DDNOS, 4.0 in anxiety disorder, 5.0 in mood disorder, 5.5 in ADHD groups and 2.0 in non-clinical controls. Conclusion: This paper establishes the validity and reliability of the Turkish translation of the CDC as well as providing cross-cultural documentation of significant dissociation occurring in children and adolescents in Turkey.