Assessing Anxiety in Youth with the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children

Abstract

The present study examined the psychometric properties, including discriminant validity and clinical utility, of the youth self-report and parent-report forms of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) among youth with anxiety disorders. The sample included parents and youth (N= 488, 49.6% male) ages 7 – 17 who participated in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS). Although the typical low agreement between parent and youth self-reports was found, the MASC evidenced good internal reliability across MASC subscales and informants. The main MASC subscales (i.e., Physical Symptoms, Harm Avoidance, Social Anxiety, and Separation/Panic) were examined. The Social Anxiety and Separation/Panic subscales were found to be significantly predictive of the presence and severity of social phobia and separation anxiety disorder, respectively. Using multiple informants improved the accuracy of prediction. The MASC subscales demonstrated good psychometric properties and clinical utilities in identifying youth with anxiety disorders.

Convergent and divergent validity of K-SADS-PL anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnoses in a clinical sample of school-aged children

“…Findings from previous studies indicate that the subscales of social anxiety and separation anxiety are specifically associated with the diagnoses of SOP and SAD respectively (23,24). In the present study, internal consistency was good, with…”

“…Moderate to strong internal reliability has been shown across all MASC subscales for both the child and parent versions (23,24). Findings from previous studies indicate that the subscales of social anxiety and separation anxiety are specifically associated with the diagnoses of SOP and SAD respectively (23,24).…”

“…Scales assessing symptoms of social anxiety more specifically may have yielded different results. Previous studies have found that children can provide important information of social anxiety symptoms relevant for diagnostic accuracy using the full version of the MASC and its subscale of social anxiety (23,24).…”

The Longitudinal Effect of Emotion Regulation Strategies on Anxiety Levels in Children and Adolescents

“…Based on this as well as on the mixed evidence for the harm avoidance subscale’s validity (Grills-Taquechel, Ollendick, & Fisak, 2008; van Gastel & Ferdinand, 2008), we focused exclusively on the remaining three subscales, which are associated more clearly with risk for their referenced disorders. That is, the social anxiety subscale has been shown to predict social anxiety disorder, the separation anxiety subscale has been shown to predict separation anxiety disorder, and the physical anxiety subscale has been shown to predict panic disorder (van Gastel & Ferdinand, 2008; Wei, et al, 2014). The MASC shows good reliability and validity (March et al, 1997).…”

Distinguishing Fear Versus Distress Symptomatology in Pediatric OCD

“…The MASC has excellent psychometric properties 68–70 and has been used to assess anxiety symptoms in community samples 71 , as well as children diagnosed with anxiety 72 and OCD. 73 The MASC provides normed t-scores (based on gender and age) for total score and four subscales that we conceptualized as fear or distress based on the prior literature 9,34,41 : separation anxiety (fear), physical symptoms (fear), harm avoidance (distress) and social anxiety (fear).…”