title: Psychometric properties of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for children in a large clinical sample.
abstract: The Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C; Chorpita, Tracey, Brown, Collica, & Barlow, 1997) is a 14-item self-report measure of worry in children and adolescents. Although the PSWQ-C has demonstrated favorable psychometric properties in small clinical and large community samples, this study represents the first psychometric evaluation of the PSWQ-C in a large clinical sample (N = 491). Factor analysis indicated a two-factor structure, in contrast to all previously published findings on the measure. The PSWQ-C demonstrated favorable psychometric properties in this sample, including high internal consistency, high convergent validity with related constructs, and acceptable discriminative validity between diagnostic categories. The performance of the 3 reverse-scored items was closely examined, and results indicated retaining all 14 items.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Pestle
authors.forename: Bruce F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Chorpita
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schiffman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D019263:Dysthymic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires