One of the aims of ACTION is to describe and improve the understanding of the co-occurrence of aggression with other forms of childhood psychopathology. Here, we presented the correlations of aggression with other psychopathologies in large European samples of children between ages 3 and 16 years old. We showed that aggression co-occurred with almost all other behavioural and social problems. More specifically, aggression co-occurred with oppositional and ADHD-related problems, and at later ages with rule-breaking. In addition to the high correlations of aggression with externalising problems, we also observed substantial associations with anxiety–depression and other internalising symptoms. This co-occurrence of internalising and externalising problems has previously been shown to persist over childhood and adolescence [29]. Both for externalising and internalising problems, the patterns of co-occurrence were largely gender and rater independent, and were similar even when aggression and the other psychopathologies were assessed by different instruments, such as the CBCL and the SDQ. Also, there were large similarities in co-occurrence patterns across countries in the Northern part of Europe.
