Evidences of psychometric quality of the Spanish 41-item Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorder

The aim of the study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the SCARED (41 item version), a self-report scale devised to detect symptoms of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. The study was carried out on a sample of 487 pupils aged between 9 and 17, who were administered a socioeconomic questionnaire and the Spanish versions of the STAIC and SCARED. Our results support the five-factor structure of the SCARED, as the authors pointed out in their original work. Four factors have been identified as anxiety disorders in DSM-IV and the fifth as School Phobia. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as a whole was .83 and scale reliability ranged between .44 and .72. These values remain stable over time (test-retest correlations between .55 and .76). Concurrent validity with the STAIC performed as expected: for the trait scale correlations between .35 and .60 and for the state scale between .13 and .28. This Spanish version of the SCARED may be considered a good instrument for the early detection of anxiety symptoms and disorders in Spanish-speaking children and adolescent populations.