title: The assessment of anxiety symptoms in preschool-aged children: the revised Preschool Anxiety Scale.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to test the validity and factorial structure of a modified version of the Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence, Rapee, McDonald, & Ingram, 2001). The measure was completed by 764 mothers and 418 fathers of children aged 3 to 5 years. After removing, two items tapping obsessive compulsive symptoms, confirmatory factor analysis showed that a four-factor model (social anxiety, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, specific fears) all loading on a higher order "anxiety" factor, provided an optimal fit for the data. The total scale and 4 subscales showed strong internal consistency (alphas = .72-.92), 12-month stability y (rs = .60-.75) and maternal/paternal agreement (rs = .60-.75). Scores on the scale also showed expected correlations with a measure of emotional distress, diagnosed anxiety disorders, and behavioral indicators of anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Emotional Health, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Susan L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: Ronald M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Rapee
authors.forename: Susan J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: Susan H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Spence
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005220:Fathers; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D002666:Psychology, Child / Q000592:standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012919:Social Behavior; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*