Several psychological measures which were originally developed in a Euro-American context have now been used for more than three decades on the Dutch-Antilles without clinical workers having taken account of their suitability for the Antillean population. A sample comprising 1025 Curaçaonian, 226 Aruban and 122 Dutch adolescents living on the Netherlands-Antilles was administered an extended version of the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale and the Derogatis Symptom Checklist-90-R, under anonymous conditions. Factor analyses of the intercorrelations of the items of the Dutch and the respective Papiamento measures showed indices of factor comparison to be sufficiently high to indicate that the dimensions underlying the assessment devices (Depression, Positive Affect and Psychoneuroticism) measured much the same thing across the three populations. In addition internal consistency reliabilities, corresponding item—remainder correlations, relationships between scales and other properties of the scales were similar enough across populations to ensure meaningful comparisons in terms of descriptive statistics. When sex and age effects were controlled for, Aruban Ss reported more emotional distress and scored lower on Positive Affect than their Curaçaonian counterparts, the differences being, however, of small Effect Size. Curaçaonians scored higher on Psychoneuroticism although they experienced more Positive Affect than the Dutch. Arubans scored higher on Depression and Psychoneuroticism than their Dutch counterparts. In terms of Effect Size, the differences between Arubans and the Dutch were more marked (medium) than those between the latter and Curaçaonian Ss (small).