Validating the Clinical Assessment of Prosocial Emotions (CAPE 1.1) with children and adolescents with conduct problems.

Abstract

Many children and adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) also display high levels of callous unemotional (CU) traits. This severe and difficult to treat subgroup of children warrant a new specifier for CD named with limited prosocial emotions (LPE), as designated in the more recent revision of the DSM-5. A valid sample to measure LPE is needed, as conventional measures for CD and CU are not sufficient. The Clinical Assessment of Prosocial Emotions (CAPE 1.1; Frick, 2013) is a multi-source, multi-informant tool administered by a trained clinician aimed to detect the LPE specifier of CD. This study aimed to assess construct, convergent and concurrent validity of the CAPE in a clinically relevant, at-risk sample of 28 children and adolescents aged 6 – 18 years old from a family intervention project (FIP) based in Stockton Council capture areas in the North East of England. The CAPE had good construct validity as it successfully mentioned CU traits. The CAPEs relationship with other child psychopathic traits was convergent but equivocal, highlighting the need for further exploration into LPE and the on terminology often used within these remits. Despite having no diagnostic tool for CD, the CAPE was also concurrently related to conduct problems when the CAPE was used as a continuous measure but not dichotomous. A critical analysis of the CAPE regarding its design and administration process is included.