Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): psychometric properties in an African-American parochial high school sample.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) for a community sample of African-American high school students.


METHODS
The 41-item SCARED was administered to 111 adolescents (57 girls; mean age 15.75) in an urban parochial school. Item frequency, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity were assessed.


RESULTS
Approximately 30% of the sample had scores high enough to warrant further assessment for anxiety disorders, and girls reported significantly higher anxiety symptoms than boys. Internal consistency (alpha =.89) and test-retest reliability (r = 0.47) over 6 months for the SCARED's total score were good. The SCARED's total score was positively correlated with other measures of anxiety symptoms and inattention and was negatively correlated with perceived self-worth. Unlike the five-factor structure reported for primarily white samples, only three factors emerged for this African-American sample.


CONCLUSIONS
The SCARED shows utility as a self-report anxiety screening instrument in a community sample of African-American youths.
Boyd
Rhonda C
RC
Department of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 3535 Market Street, Suite 1230, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. rboyd@mail.med.upenn.edu
Ginsburg
Golda S
GS
Lambert
Sharon F
SF
Cooley
Michele R
MR
Campbell
Karren D M
KD
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity