NCJ Number
179361
Journal
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Volume: 38 Issue: 10 Dated: October 1999 Pages: 1230-1236
Date Published
October 1999
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This study's objective was to replicate and extend work on the psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), a child and parent self-report instrument used to screen for children with anxiety disorders.
Abstract
The 41-item version of the SCARED was administered to a new sample of 190 outpatient children and adolescents as well as to 166 parents. The internal consistency and the discriminant and convergent validity were assessed. In addition, discrimination function analysis was used to develop a briefer version of the SCARED. Using item analyses and factor analyses on the 41-item version, five factors were obtained: panic/somatic, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social phobia, and school phobia. In general, the total score and each of the five factors for both the child and the parent SCARED showed good internal consistency and discriminant validity (both between anxiety and depressive and disruptive disorders and within anxiety disorders). A reduced version of the SCARED yielded five items and showed similar psychometrics to the full SCARED. In a new sample, the authors replicated their initial psychometric findings that the SCARED is a reliable and valid instrument for screening childhood anxiety disorders in clinical settings. Furthermore, pending future research, the five-item SCARED apparently is a promising brief screening inventory for anxiety disorders in epidemiological studies. 3 tables and 33 references