Psychometric Properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders for Socially Anxious and Healthy Spanish Adolescents

Abstract

Socially anxious and healthy Spanish adolescents were studied in order to test the psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Confirmatory factor analyses were employed to test measurement invariance between these two populations, Cronbach's alphas were calculated to determine the reliabilities of the scales, and partial eta-square tests calculated the effect size of the differences between socially anxious and healthy adolescents and between the adolescent boys and girls. The psychometric properties of the SCARED were good, as demonstrated by having acceptable reliabilities (ranging from .75 - .41) and a moderate multivariate effect size (eta(2)(p) = .08) between the adolescent boys and girls. Most importantly, it was demonstrated that the SCARED could differentiate between socially anxious and healthy Spanish adolescents as demonstrated by measurement invariance (chi(2) = 254.27, df = 1343, GFI = .884, AGFI = .872, RMR = .031) and the large effect size (eta(2)(p) = .22) between the samples.