Discrepancies between Parent and Adolescent Responses to Survey Questions

Abstract

This study examined the congruency of adolescent and parent perceptions of adolescent diabetes self-management and problem solving. Survey responses were collected from 115 adolescent- parent dyads. Parents' and adolescents' responses to problem solving and self-management surveys were studied to determine the agreement between their responses and the relationship to the adolescents' hemoglobin A1c, age and gender. Simple discrepancy scores were computed for each dyad for each questionnaire and were calculated by subtracting the mean child score for each item from the mean parent score for the same item, then summing over the items. A squared discrepancy score was also calculated for each dyad per survey to magnify the discrepancy results. Bivariate correlations were run for the four discrepancy scores along with A1c, child's gender and age. The results indicate that while no variables were significantly related with A1c, there was a high correlation between the parent and adolescent scores.