The fear survey schedule for children-II (FSSC-II): Validity data as a treatment outcome measure

This article extends previous research on the development and evaluation of a fear survey schedule for children. It was predicted that children diagno sed with an anxiety or other internalising disorder would report fewer fear s, a lower intensity of fear and different fear content following treatment , whereas the same changes would not be observed in a control group. A tota l of 34 children, aged 5 to 15 years, who presented with school-refusal beh aviour, were randomly allocated to cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) or wai ting-list control (WLC). Self-reported fear was assessed at pre- and post-t est for both groups using the Fear Survey Schedule for Children - II (FSSC- II). Importantly, it was shown that the self-reported fear of the two group s was not distinguishable at pre-test. Also, whereas no significant differe nces were found between pre-and post-test on a total of 12 fear indices for the WLC group, the CBT group was found to report a significantly lower fea r score at post-test on 10 of these 12 indices. In contrast to past researc h using the FSSC-II with samples of children without clinical problems, the pre-test top 10 fears of both groups and the post-test top 10 fears of the WLC group were found to include stimuli related to themes other than death and danger. It was concluded that these findings provide support for the s ensitivity of the FSSC-II and justify its use as an outcome measure in trea tment evaluations.