Development of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale - Short Version (SCAS-S)

Abstract

The literature provides several examples of anxiety symptoms questionnaires for children. However, these questionnaires generally contain many items, and might not be ideal for screening in large populations, or repeated testing in clinical settings. The Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) is an extensively used and evaluated 44-item questionnaire developed to assess anxiety symptoms in children, and provides a sound base for the development of an abbreviated anxiety symptoms questionnaire. Although methodological standards have been presented in how to develop abbreviated questionnaires, previous studies have often suffered from several limitations regarding validating procedures. Guided by these methodological standards, the current study aimed at developing an abbreviated version of the SCAS, while retaining the content, convergent, and divergent validity of the original scale. A school-based sample (n = 750) was used to reduce the number of items, and an independent school-based sample (n = 371) together with a clinical sample (n = 93), were used to validate the abbreviated scale. The abbreviated version of the SCAS contained 19 items, it showed a clear factor structure as evaluated in the independent sample, and it performed as good as the original questionnaire regarding classification accuracy, convergent, and divergent validity. In our view, the abbreviated version is a very good alternative to the original scale especially for younger children, in initial screening, or in order to reduce response burden.

Dimension-specific symptom patterns in trajectories of broad anxiety: A longitudinal prospective study in school-aged children

“…Specifically, due to the hierarchical structure, a change in separation subscale scores are largely accounted for by change in the broad anxiety construct. For example, Ahlen, Vigerland, and Ghaderi (2017), as well as Reise (2012) found that much of the variation of subscale scores in dimensional measures of child anxiety was actually attributable to the latent construct of broad anxiety rather than to the dimension-specific constructs. Weems et al (2013) recently highlighted this issue and showed that, without accounting for other sources of anxiety, a real change in a specific dimension of anxiety can be suppressed.…”

COVID-19-related anxiety and trauma symptoms predict decreases in body image satisfaction in children

“…Children’s generalized anxiety symptoms were measured using the four-item generalized anxiety subscale (“This child worries about things”, “This child worries that something awful will happen to someone in our family”, “This child worries that something bad will happen to him/her”, and “This child can’t seem to get bad or silly thoughts out of his/her head”) of the parent-reported Spence Child’s Anxiety Scale, Short Version (SCAS-S) [ 28 ]. Parents rated each item on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 ( never ) to 4 ( always ).…”

Mental health trajectories of individuals and families following the COVID-19 pandemic: Study protocol of a longitudinal investigation and prevention program

“…Additionally, subscales for the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire ( Woerner, Becker, & Rothenberger, 2004 ) assess hyperactivity, conduct problems, and prosocial behaviour in 15 items using a 3-point scale. Finally, a short version ( Ahlen, Vigerland, & Ghaderi, 2018 ) of the Spence Child Anxiety Scale ( Spence, Barrett, & Turner, 2003 ) covers anxiety symptoms using 19 items and a 4-point Likert scale. Both parents (children aged 5 to 17) and youths (aged 11-17) report on all symptoms.…”

“…Both parents (children aged 5 to 17) and youths (aged 11-17) report on all symptoms. All questionnaires show good psychometric properties ( Richardson et al 2010a ; Woerner, Becker, & Rothenberger, 2004 ; Ahlen, Vigerland, & Ghaderi, 2018 ; Spence, Barrett, & Turner, 2003 ) and serve as both, dimensional (severity of symptoms) and categorical (cut-offs for a disorder) measure of psychopathology.…”