Background:

Despite the high prevalence of conduct problems in children, and their social and health impact, little is known about gender differences in their characteristics, determinants and implications. This three-year longitudinal study explored the diversity of individual trait configurations in children with conduct problems, assessing whether 1) the same profiles can be identified in boys and girls and, 2) the predictors and outcomes of these profiles are invariant across genders.

Method:

A multigroup analysis of latent profiles based on temperamental and psychopathic traits was performed on a sample of 401 young children (50.87% girls) with high scores in conduct problems.

Results:

Both the number of profiles and the means and variances of compositional variables were similar across genders, but the distributions were different. Four profiles were identified, and girls belonged to the least problematic group more frequently. While the predictors were invariant across genders, outcomes were not.

Conclusions:

This study contributes to the literature on heterogeneity in conduct problems by identifying specific constellations of traits in both boys and girls and shows the importance of considering gender in understanding the progression of conduct problems.

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