Table 2.

Emotional health age DIF analysis

Short form	Item stem	Age DIF (5–7 vs. 8–17)		Age DIF (8–12 vs. 13–17)
		X2 (df)	p	X2 (df)	p
	Depressive symptoms
	My child wanted to be by himself/herself.	5.3 (5)	0.38	12.1 (5)	0.03
SF	My child felt alone.	4.3 (4)	0.36	4.1 (4)	0.40
SF	My child felt like he/she couldn't do anything right.	1.9 (4)	0.75	3.2 (4)	0.53
SF	My child felt everything in his/her life went wrong.	5.1 (4)	0.28	5.2 (4)	0.27
	My child felt too sad to eat.	2.7 (4)	0.62	2.6 (4)	0.62
	My child didn't care about anything.	4.3 (5)	0.51	10.1 (5)	0.07
	It was hard for my child to have fun.	5.0 (5)	0.42	6.4 (5)	0.27
SF	My child could not stop feeling sad.	4.1 (4)	0.39	2.6 (4)	0.64
SF	My child felt lonely.	10.0 (5)	0.08	9.1 (5)	0.11
SF	My child felt unhappy.	12.7 (5)	0.03	7.7 (5)	0.18
	Depressive symptoms DIF Items
SF	My child felt sad. *	19.5 (5)	0.00	7.0 (5)	0.22
SF	My child thought that his/her life was bad. *	21.7 (5)	0.00	5.2 (5)	0.39
	It was hard for my child to do school work because he/she felt sad.	16.2 (5)	0.01	4.6 (5)	0.47
	My child felt stressed.	27.0 (5)	0.00	8.0 (5)	0.16
	Anxiety
SF	My child felt scared.	5.3 (4)	0.26	3.0 (4)	0.55
SF	My child felt worried.	12.9 (5)	0.02	7.5 (5)	0.19
SF	My child felt like something awful might happen.	7.1 (5)	0.21	3.7 (5)	0.59
SF	My child worried about what could happen to him/her.	4.1 (5)	0.54	0.4 (5)	1.00
	My child worried when he/she was away from home.	9.5 (5)	0.09	7.6 (5)	0.18
SF	My child felt nervous.	9.9 (5)	0.08	4.6 (5)	0.47
	My child was worried he/she might die.	4.6 (3)	0.20	0.3 (3)	0.96
	It was hard for my child to relax.	10.7 (5)	0.06	8.2 (5)	0.15
	My child was afraid of going to school.	5.0 (5)	0.42	8.8 (5)	0.12
SF	My child was afraid that he/she would make mistakes.	8.2 (5)	0.15	7.2 (5)	0.21
	Anxiety DIF items
	My child worried when he/she was at home.*	13.1 (4)	0.01	4.7 (4)	0.32
SF	My child worried when he/she went to bed at night.*	19.2 (5)	0.00	1.1 (5)	0.96
SF	My child thought about scary things.*	14.2 (5)	0.01	11.0 (5)	0.05
	My child got scared really easy.	34.5 (5)	0.00	6.6 (5)	0.25
	My child woke up at night scared.	19.5 (4)	0.00	8.0 (4)	0.09
	Anger
SF	My child felt mad.	1.2 (5)	0.94	6.0 (5)	0.31
SF	When my child got mad, he/she stayed mad.	1.6 (5)	0.90	6.2 (5)	0.29
SF	My child felt upset.	5.5 (4)	0.24	2.2 (4)	0.71
SF	My child was so angry he/she felt like throwing something.	2.6 (5)	0.76	5.9 (5)	0.32
SF	My child was so angry he/she felt like yelling at somebody.	4.8 (4)	0.31	7.9 (4)	0.09

^*Items that exhibited statistical DIF that were retained with caution.