Behavioral disorders like ADHD have been shown to occur just as frequently in children from ethnic minorities as in ethnic Dutch children. However, children from ethnic minorities are treated less frequently for this than their ethnic Dutch counterparts. This is the conclusion of Barbara Zwirs based on her study on behavioral problems among Dutch, Moroccan, Turkish, and Surinamese school children in Amsterdam and Utrecht. For this study, teachers completed a questionnaire on behavior for 2185 children. In 270 of these children, a follow-up study took place consisting of a psychiatric examination of the children and a diagnostic interview with the parents.
Under-recognition by parents from ethnic minorities seems to play an important role in the undertreatment of their children because these parents notice relatively few behavior problems in them. The differences observed by teachers in problem behavior in Turkish, Moroccan, and Dutch boys suggest that ethnicity has an influence on the situation in which the problem behavior is expressed. Another striking finding was that among Turkish children, no differences were observed in problem behavior between boys and girls, whereas in the other ethnic groups, boys showed more problem behavior than girls. Because behavior problems are related to all kinds of other problems, it is very important to improve recognition of behavior problems among children from ethnic minorities.
Barbara Zwirs
Externalizing disorders among children of different ethnic origin in the Netherlands
PhD advisor 1: Prof. T.W.J. Schulpen
PhD advisor 2: Prof. J.K. Buitelaar
Co-advisor: Dr. H. Burger