Use of the Drawn Stories Technique to Evaluate Psychological Distress in Children

This study evaluated the validity of analyzing children's drawings using the Drawn Stories Technique for psychodiagnostic assessment and clinical investigation of children. The research was conducted on a sample of 211 subjects (102 girls, 109 boys), 99 in primary school and 112 in secondary school. Three measures of psychological distress were given: the Drawn Stories Technique (considering two types of outcome of the stories as an index of psychological distress: story with a negative outcome and story with a positive outcome), and two self-report scales, the Anxiety Scale Questionnaire for Children and the Children's Depression Inventory. Analyses for both age groups indicate a prevalence of positive outcomes over negative outcomes, with a similar distribution in the two age groups. Greater anxiety and depression were found for subjects with a prevalence of negative outcome in the stories, and girls scored generally as more anxious and depressed than boys. These results indicate that the Drawn Stories Technique shows construct validity for use with children and is sensitive enough to detect their psychological distress, in terms of anxiety and depression.