Abstract

We aimed to provide evidence of validity and reliability for the scores of a stressful life events risk assessment in offender and non-offender Chilean adolescents. The design was instrumental. A total of 2,516 adolescents from two previous projects were part of the study. The offender sub-sample (25.36%) was recruited by non-probabilistic convenience sampling and the non-offender (74.64%) by proportional and stratified by conglomerates sampling. We identified 47 items that are risk factors for delinquency and antisocial outcomes, and we grouped them into six theoretical dimensions. We obtained good content coherence, acceptable internal consistency, adequate factor structure, convergent associations with theoretically related constructs, and predictive capacity for some dimensions. The logistic regression analysis showed that adolescents who accumulated more risk factors had an augmented risk of being an offender. The hierarchical multiple regression indicated that four of the six dimensions were predictors of violent antisocial behavior. As evidence of three validity sources and reliability were demonstrated, we recommend using the scale for detecting events that are risk factors of antisocial and delinquent behavior in adolescents and for intervention to prevent violent criminal and antisocial conduct.