Objectives To validate a three-factor model for the Pediatric Symptom Checklist-17 (PSC-17) and evaluate its diagnostic accuracy with African-American and Caucasian children with and without a chronic illness. Methods Mothers of 723 youth diagnosed with either type I diabetes (n ¼ 210) or sickle cell disease (n ¼ 191) and a nonill peer group (n ¼ 322) completed a demographic questionnaire, the PSC-17, and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Results Confirmatory factor analyses and tests of

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... urement invariance validated a three-factor structure for the PSC-17 with African-American and Caucasian youth with and without a chronic illness. Receiver operating characteristic curves revealed optimal cut-off scores that are similar to published reports. Conclusions A three-factor solution was replicated for the PSC-17 with African-American and Caucasian children with and without a chronic illness. Cut-off scores for identifying children at risk for emotional/behavioral problems were evaluated using the CBCL as the gold standard and are discussed.