The revised version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED-R): treatment sensitivity in an early intervention trial for childhood anxiety disorders.
The revised version of the Screen for Childhood Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED-R) is a recently developed self-report questionnaire for measuring DSM-IV defined anxiety disorder symptoms in children. The current study examined the treatment sensitivity of the SCARED-R.



Thirty-six children (aged 8-13 years) who fulfilled the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and/or social phobia received either group or individual cognitive-behavioural treatment. Children completed the SCARED-R and a traditional measure of childhood anxiety, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC), at three points in time: (1) 6 months before treatment (i.e. baseline), (2) pre-treatment, and (3) post-treatment.



Results showed that children's SCARED-R and STAIC scores did not change from baseline to pre-treatment, but significantly declined from pre-treatment to post-treatment. An additional finding of the present study was that group and individual CBT were equally effective in reducing children's anxiety symptoms.



It can be concluded that the SCARED-R reliably taps treatment effects and thus should be regarded as a useful self-report index of childhood anxiety in clinical and research settings. Furthermore, the data support the notion that CBT should be generally regarded as an efficacious intervention for anxiety disordered children.
Muris
P
P
Department of Medical, Clinical, and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. p.muris@dep.unimaas.nl
Mayer
B
B
Bartelds
E
E
Tierney
S
S
Bogie
N
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011615:Psychotherapy, Group; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome