Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): A replication study

Objective: To replicate and extend work on the psychometric properties of t he Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), a child a nd parent self-report instrument used to screen for children with anxiety d isorders. Method: The 41-item version of the SCARED was administered to a n ew sample of 190 outpatient children and adolescents and 166 parents. The i nternal consistency, discriminant, and convergent validity were assessed. I n addition, using discriminant function analysis, a briefer version of the SCARED was developed. Results: Using item analyses and factor analyses on t he 41-item version, 5 factors were obtained: panic/somatic, generalized anx iety, separation anxiety, social phobia, and school phobia. In general, the total score and each of the 5 factors for both the child and parent SCARED demonstrated good internal consistency and discriminant validity (both bet ween anxiety and depressive and disruptive disorders and within anxiety dis orders). A reduced version of the SCARED yielded 5 items and showed similar psychometrics to the full SCARED. Conclusions: In a new sample, the author s replicated their initial psychometric findings that the SCARED is a relia ble and valid instrument to screen for childhood anxiety disorders in clini cal settings. Furthermore, pending future research, the 5-item SCARED appea rs to be a promising brief screening inventory for anxiety disorders in epi demiological studies.