With regard to the current findings, it is worth noting that three prior studies have undertaken LCAs of DSM-based disorders and have reported optimal solutions ranging from 6 to 8 latent classes [34-36]. While some commonalities in results are evident across these investigations, direct comparisons are difficult because different sets of disorders and differing time referents (e.g., lifetime versus 12-month diagnoses) were used in these studies. Additionally, the purpose of the current study was to examine psychopathology from a complementary modeling perspective rather than to make a decisive statement on the structure of psychopathology (e.g., x number of classes). Thus, we made a series of a priori decisions that guided our approach in terms of the disorders and time referents utilized in the current analyses, with the aim of using our findings to provide additional insight into the nature of comorbidity underlying internalizing and externalizing psychopathology.
