surprising that comparisons of children’s syndromes across 16 different regions of the world as ascertained by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) showed higher prevalence rates of internalizing syndromes and lower rates of externalizing syndromes in the Asian countries as compared to several Western countries [27]. In fact, a longitudinal 25 year follow up of a community sample of children from the United Kingdom (from 1970’s to the late 1990s), showed that conduct problems significantly increased over this time period for children of both sexes and all socio-economic classes [22]. The long term outcomes for adolescents with conduct problems were similar across time providing evidence that the observed trends were not due to changing report effects. More recently, a five year follow up of this same cohort was performed [23]. The results showed that conduct problems as reported by parent, youth, and teachers either remained stable or slightly declined. Nevertheless, the extent to which these findings generalize to specific externalizing disorders such as CD and ODD need to be determined.
