RELATION BETWEEN SYMPTOMS OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION IN CHILDREN - A MULTITRAIT-MULTIMETHOD-MULTIGROUP ASSESSMENT

Teacher, parent, peer, and self-ratings of depression and anxiety symp toms were obtained from 280 3rd-grade and 211 6th-grade children. Conf irmatory factor analysis of these multitrait-multimethod data for 3rd graders revealed low but statistically significant levels of convergen t validity, high levels of method variance, and an extremely high corr elation between the depression and anxiety factors, even after control ling for shared method variance. Similar analyses of 6th graders revea led slightly higher levels of convergent validity and a somewhat small er correlation between the depression and anxiety factors. The data su pport a unified construct model for younger children and are consisten t with either a dual factor or a tripartite model of depression and an xiety in older children.