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Psychometric Properties of the Children’s Version of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) in a Spanish Clinical Sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2020

Eduard Forcadell Open the ORCID record for Eduard Forcadell [Opens in a new window] ,
Laura Medrano ,
Blanca Garcia-Delgar ,
Iván Fernández-Martínez Open the ORCID record for Iván Fernández-Martínez [Opens in a new window] ,
Mireia Orgilés ,
Carolina García ,
Luisa Lázaro  and
Sara Lera-Miguel
Eduard Forcadell*
Affiliation:
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain)
Laura Medrano
Affiliation:
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain)
Blanca Garcia-Delgar
Affiliation:
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain)
Iván Fernández-Martínez
Affiliation:
Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (Spain)
Mireia Orgilés
Affiliation:
Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (Spain)
Carolina García
Affiliation:
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain)
Luisa Lázaro
Affiliation:
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain) CIBERSAM, Ministerio de Sanidad (Spain)
Sara Lera-Miguel
Affiliation:
Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (Spain)
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eduard Forcadell. Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. Servei de Psiquiatria i Psicologia Infantil i Juvenil. 08036 Barcelona (Spain). E-mail: eforcadell@clinic.cat
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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.

Keywords

anxiety disordersassessmentchildren and adolescentsvalidation
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 23 , 2020 , e40
Copyright
© Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2020

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Footnotes

Conflicts of Interest: None

Funding Statement: This work was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (grant number 2017SGR881).

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