We attempted to collect information from a parent or parent-surrogate of each adolescent in order to obtain an additional perspective on the adolescent’s mental health and its correlates. A parent self-report questionnaire (SAQ) was developed for this purpose. Although an interview with the parent would have been preferable because the mode of administration would be the same as that of the child, and follow-up questions to clarify responses could have been included, a self-report format was necessary because of budgetary constraints. As shown in Table 1, parent reports focused on the five adolescent disorders for which previous methodological research has most consistently shown that parental reports are important for making diagnoses: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, major depressive episode, and dysthymic disorder.35 (link), 36 (link) As in previous studies, we combined diagnostic information obtained from adolescents and parents when making final diagnostic classifications.37 (link) The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)20 (link) was also included in the SAQ in order to obtain a dimensional rating of child mental health problems as well as to provide calibration data that could be used to interpret the SDQ scores in the NHIS. The average administration time for the final SAQ in pilot studies was approximately 45 minutes.