Identifying children with anxiety disorders using brief versions of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale for children, parents, and teachers.

ABSTRACT: Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental health disorders experienced by children and are associated with significant negative outcomes. Only a minority of affected children, however, access professional help, and a failure to identify children with anxiety disorders presents a key barrier to treatment access. Existing child anxiety questionnaire measures are long and time consuming to complete, limiting their potential for widespread use as identification tools in community settings. We developed a brief questionnaire for parents, children, and teachers using items from the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) and evaluated the new measure's psychometric properties, capacity to discriminate between a community (n = 361) and clinic-referred sample (n = 338) of children aged

SUBMITTER: Reardon T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6179143 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature