A comparison of self-reported puberty using the Pubertal Development Scale and the Sexual Maturation Scale in a school-based epidemiologic survey
Abstract
Purpose: To examine concordance between two self‐reported measures of puberty: Sexual Maturation Scale (SMS) and Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) and their acceptability to adolescents. Methods: Participants of a school‐based study in grades 5, 7 and 9 were classified into one of 5 pubertal stages using each method. Results: 2864 students (age 9–16 years) participated. Agreement was moderate for males ( 0.42, 95% CI 0.39, 0.45) and females ( 0.57, 95% CI 0.53, 0.61). Concordance within one stage was excellent (females 97%, males 89%), with discrepancies due to females being classified one stage later on the PDS (26%) and males one stage earlier (32%). There were more missing data for the SMS (13%) than the PDS (4%). Conclusions: Given the level of concordance and difficulties of using the drawings in a school‐based survey, we would recommend the PDS as an alternative to assess pubertal status in epidemiological studies.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Self-reported Pubertal Development Scale scores correlate moderately with other measures of pubertal status, such as Tanner's Sexual Maturation Scale.
“Self-report on the PDS has been shown to correlate moderately with other measurements of pubertal status, like Tanner's Sexual Maturation Scale (Bond et al., 2006).”
From Developmental sex differences in resting state functional connectivity of amygdala sub-regions (2015) · cites this paper as Bond et al., 2006
The study's puberty measure has only modest concordance with clinician evaluations of pubertal girls and moderate agreement with self-reported Tanner staging, limiting interpretation of true pubertal effects.
“Lastly, our measure of puberty shares only modest concordance with clinician evaluations of pubertal girls (Brooks-Gunn et al., 1987), which we did not have access to, and a moderate agreement with self-reported Tanner staging (Bond et al., 2006), limiting our interpretation of true pubertal effects.”
From Developmental sex differences in resting state functional connectivity of amygdala sub-regions (2015) · cites this paper as Bond et al., 2006
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 29 · Cited by 141
- Authors
- Bond, L., Clements, J., Bertalli, N., Evans‐Whipp, T., McMorris, B. J., Patton, G. C., Toumbourou, J. W., & Catalano, R. F.
- Affiliations
- Royal Children's Hospital (AU)
- Murdoch Children's Research Institute (AU)
- Centre for Adolescent Health Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Australia
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bond, Lyndal
- Venue
- Journal of Adolescence
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2005-11-30
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 709-720
- ISSN
- 0140-1971 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9254
- OpenAlex
- W1991867951
- Cited by
- 141
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 1.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Adolescence (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Victoria University Research Repository (Victoria University) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Department of Education and Training
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA 121410)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormones
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Human Health and Disease
- Keywords
- puberty, Pubertal Development Scale, measurement agreement, adolescents, school-based survey, questionnaire acceptability
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Australia, Catchment Area, Health, Child, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Demography, Female, Humans, Male, Physiology, Prospective Studies, Puberty, Surveys and Questionnaires, Schools, Self Disclosure, Sexual Maturation, Washington, Cohort Studies
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
