No abstract

The psychometric results indicate that the short SMI is a valuable measure that can be of use for mode assessment in SFT.

Although the associations found were low to modest, these results underscore the importance of expectancy and credibility for the outcome of different active interventions for CLBP and might contribute to the development of more effective treatments.

No abstract

The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (Chorpita, Yim, Moffitt, Umemoto, & Francis, 2000), a self-report questionnaire for assessing symptoms of DSM-defined anxiety disorders and major depression, in a large sample of school children (N = 1748). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the structure of the RCADS was not fully in agreement with that reported by Chorpita et al. (2000). After removing conceptually inconsistent items, the questionnaire was reduced to 25 items representing five scales, namely, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic disorder, and major depressive disorder. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that a correlated 5-factor structure of the shortened version of the RCADS (i.e. the RCADS-25) indeed provided a good fit for the data. Second, the psychometric properties of the RCADS-25 were comparable to those obtained with the full-length version. That is, the questionnaire was reliable in terms of internal consistency and test-retest stability, displayed reasonable parent-child agreement, and good convergent and divergent validity. Altogether, the RCADS and its shortened version, the RCADS-25, seem to be useful questionnaires for clinical and research purposes.

No abstract

This longitudinal study examined the additive and interactive effects of behavioral inhibition and a wide range of other vulnerability factors in the development of anxiety problems in youths. A sample of 261 children, aged 5 to 8 years, 124 behaviorally inhibited and 137 control children, were followed during a 3-year period. Assessments took place on three occasions to measure children’s level of behavioral inhibition, anxiety disorder symptoms, other psychopathological symptoms, and a number of other vulnerability factors such as insecure attachment, negative parenting styles, adverse life events, and parental anxiety. Results obtained with Structural Equation Modeling indicated that behavioral inhibition primarily acted as a specific risk factor for the development of social anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, the longitudinal model showed additive as well as interactive effects for various vulnerability factors on the development of anxiety symptoms. That is, main effects of anxious rearing and parental trait anxiety were found, whereas behavioral inhibition and attachment had an interactive effect on anxiety symptomatology. Moreover, behavioral inhibition itself was also influenced by some of the vulnerability factors. These results provide support for dynamic, multifactorial models for the etiology of child anxiety problems.

The current study examined the anxiety sensitivity construct in a large sample of normal Dutch adolescents aged 13-16 years (n=819). Children completed the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman, W. K., Fleisig, W., Rabian, B. & Peterson, R. A. (1991). Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 20, 162-168) and measures of trait anxiety, anxiety disorder symptoms and depression. Results showed that (1) anxiety sensitivity as indexed by the CASI seems to be a hierarchically organized construct with one higher-order factor (i.e., anxiety sensitivity) and three or four lower-order factors, (2) anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety were strongly correlated, (3) anxiety sensitivity was substantially connected to symptoms of anxiety disorders (in particular of panic disorder and agoraphobia) and depression, and (4) anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety both accounted for unique proportions of the variance in anxiety disorder symptoms. Altogether these findings are in agreement with those of previous research in adult and child populations, and further support the notion that anxiety sensitivity should be viewed as an unique factor of anxiety vulnerability.