Validation of the Spanish version of the Baby Pediatric Symptom Checklist (BPSC) with Peruvian infants aged 6 to 18 months from socioeconomically vulnerable settings

Validation of the Spanish version of the Baby Pediatric Symptom Checklist (BPSC) with Peruvian infants aged 6 to 18 months from socioeconomically vulnerable settings. Difficulties in the socioemotional development of infants are associated with problems of adaptation to the social environment and greater probability of psychopathology during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Despite this, in the Latin American context there is no instrument available to assess such difficulties with infants, specially in socioeconomically vulnerable contexts. Therefore, the aim of this study was to obtain evidence of internal validity of the Spanish versión of the Baby Pediatric Symptom Checklist (BPSC; Sheldrick et al., 2013) in a sample of 1239 infants (50% females and 50% males) aged six to 18 months (M = 12.40, SD = 3.20). The infants came from urban and rural areas of Peru with high rates of socioeconomic vulnerability. In the overall sample, the exploratory factor analysis (KMO = .93, Bartlett’s Sphericity Test [66] = 28960.62, p < .001) and confirmatory factor analysis (χ2(51) = 254.58, p < .001, CFI = .97, RMSEA = .06 and SRMR = .03) results showed adequate internal structure validity with a three-factor solution which shows an appropriate reliability (α = .82-.84; ω = .81 - .87). In addition, the results of the analyses performed through exploratory factor analysis by age groups also revealed an adequate functioning of the scale in the 6- to 12-month and 12- to 18-month age groups.Thus, evidence is provided to support the use of the BPSC in studies conducted in Peru.