scholarly journals DSM-IV-defined anxiety disorder symptoms in a middle-childhood-aged group of Malaysian children using the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atefeh Ahmadi ◽  
Mohamed Sharif Mustaffa ◽  
Amirmudin Udin ◽  
AliAkbar Haghdoost

Introduction Pediatric anxiety disorders are the most common mental health disorders in the middle-childhood age group. The purpose of this study is to assess anxiety disorder symptoms, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV), in a large community sample of low socioeconomic level rural children and to investigate some of the psychometric properties (internal consistency, construct and convergent validity and items rated as often or always experienced) of the Malay version of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale - Child version (SCAS-C). Method Six hundred children aged 9-11 and 424 of their parents completely answered the child or parent versions of the SCAS. Results Results indicated that the internal reliability of subscales were moderate to adequate. Significant correlations between child and parent reports supported the measure's concurrent validity. Additionally, anxiety levels in this Malaysian sample were lower than among South-African children and higher than among their Western peers. There were both similarities and differences between symptom items reported as often or always experienced by Malaysian students and by children from other cultures. Confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of the existence of five inter-correlated factors for anxiety disorders based on SCAS-C. Conclusion Although some of the instrument's psychometric properties deviated from those observed in some other countries, it nevertheless appears to be useful for assessing childhood anxiety symptoms in this country.

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diogo A. DeSousa ◽  
Circe S. Petersen ◽  
Rafaela Behs ◽  
Gisele G. Manfro ◽  
Silvia H. Koller

Objective: To describe the cross-cultural adaptation of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) for use in Brazil. Methods: Cross-cultural adaptation followed a four-step process, based on specialized literature: 1) investigation of conceptual and item equivalence; 2) translation and back-translation; 3) pretest; and 4) investigation of operational equivalence. All these procedures were carried out for both the child and the parent versions of the SCAS. Results: A final Brazilian version of the instrument, named SCAS-Brasil, was defined and is presented. Conclusion: The SCAS-Brasil instrument seems to be very similar to the original SCAS in terms of conceptual and item equivalence, semantics, and operational equivalence, suggesting that future cross-cultural studies may benefit from this early version. As a result, a new instrument is now available for the assessment of childhood anxiety symptoms in community, clinical, and research settings.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 427-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diogo A. DeSousa ◽  
Anderson S. Pereira ◽  
Circe S. Petersen ◽  
Gisele G. Manfro ◽  
Giovanni A. Salum ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giannouli Vasiliki ◽  
Sarris Dimitrios ◽  
Alexoudi Pagona

<p>Special Learning Disabilities (SLD) are often accompanied by negative thoughts of self-assessment, deficits in social interactions and psycho-emotional problems as well, which hinder the development and the smooth integration of children diagnosed with SLD into their environment. This research attempts to investigate the association of negative self-assessment thoughts and anxiety disorders with Special Learning Disabilities in a sample of sixty Greek-speaking children in 4th, 5th and 6th grades with and without SLD, including their parents. The tools used for this purpose are the Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale (CATS), and the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS-CH) self-report questionnaire, which assess anxiety disorders. Parents were asked to answer the corresponding Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale-Parents Edition (SCAS-P) symptom-monitoring questionnaire. According to the results compared to their normal development peers, children with SLD had a higher incidence of negative thoughts, which is more likely to lead to symptoms of anxiety disorders; their parents in fact were able to perceive the severity or frequency of these symptoms in their children. In addition, the frequency of negative thoughts and symptoms related to anxiety disorders seemed to be influenced by the student’s condition (with or without SLD), but not by gender and age. </p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0982/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduard Forcadell ◽  
Laura Medrano ◽  
Blanca Garcia-Delgar ◽  
Iván Fernández-Martínez ◽  
Mireia Orgilés ◽  
...  

Abstract The Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) has demonstrated good psychometric properties in several countries and cultures. Nevertheless, most of the previous studies that explore these properties have combined clinical and community samples. We aimed to validate the Spanish version of the SCAS in a large clinical sample (N = 130) of children and adolescents. The Spanish adaptation of the SCAS showed good internal consistency for the total scale, and good test-retest reliability for all the subscales. Furthermore, its convergent and discriminant validity were supported by significant correlations with other anxiety questionnaires (Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders [SCARED], Youth Self-Report [YSR] subscales for anxiety disorders and internalizing symptomatology), and lower or non-significant correlations with depression symptoms and externalizing symptoms scales respectively. For the first time in a purely clinical sample, the original factor structure of the SCAS based on six correlated factors was confirmed. Future studies need to evaluate whether the factorial structure of the present instrument is the most suitable for use in clinical populations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 776-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireia Orgilés ◽  
Miriam Rodríguez-Menchón ◽  
Iván Fernández-Martínez ◽  
Alexandra Morales ◽  
José Pedro Espada

Although Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) is a widely used anxiety measure in many countries around the world, until now, research has barely focused on the usefulness of the parent version (SCAS-P) in young children. This study examines the psychometric properties and the factor structure of the SCAS-P in a Spanish community sample of 181 children aged 6–8 years ( M = 6.87, SD = 0.78). Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit of the original six-factor model to the Spanish sample. The internal consistency and the test–retest reliability of the scale were high. Regarding the validity of this measure, higher and significant correlations between the SCAS-P and internalizing problems and lower correlations with externalizing problems were obtained, as found in the original version. Girls seemed to show more anxiety problems than boys, but no significant differences were found. The results suggest that the SCAS-P is an adequate measure to assess anxious symptomatology in young children. The availability of measures with good psychometric properties allows psychologists to assess and carry out a correct and early diagnosis of anxiety disorders in children, making possible an early clinical intervention.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document