A Psychometric Analysis of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale—Parent Version in a Clinical Sample

Abstract

The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale—Parent Version (RCADS-P) is a 47-item parent-report questionnaire of youth anxiety and depression, with scales corresponding to the DSM-IV categories of Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Phobia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The RCADS-P is currently the only parent-report questionnaire that concurrently assesses youth symptomatology of individual anxiety disorders as well as depression in accordance with DSM-IV nosology. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the RCADS-P in a large (N = 490), clinic-referred sample of youths. The RCADS-P demonstrated favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency, convergent/divergent validity, as well as strong discriminant validity—evidencing an ability to discriminate between anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as between the targeted anxiety disorders. Support for the DSM-related six-factor RCADS-P structure was also evidenced. This structure demonstrated superior fit to a recently suggested alternative to the DSM-IV classification of anxiety and affective disorders—namely, the MDD/GAD “distress” factor.

The Youth Self Report: Applicability and Validity Across Younger and Older Youths

“…Children's Interview for Psychiatric Syndromes, Child Version (ChIPS;Fristad et al, 1998;Teare et al, 1998 Ebesutani et al, 2010).…”

Separation Anxiety in Children and Adolescents

“…The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale-Parent Version (RCADS-P) is a 47-item parent-report questionnaire of youth anxiety and depression, with scales corresponding to the DSM-IV categories of Separation Anxiety Disorder, Social Phobia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The RCADS-P demonstrated favourable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency, convergent/divergent validity, as well as strong discriminant validity -evidencing an ability to discriminate between anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as between the targeted anxiety disorders (Ebesutani et al, 2010).…”

Evaluation Of The Internal Structural Validity Of The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition) Anxiety Disorders In Children And Adolescents

“…The studies that have been conducted to date (Chorpita et al, 2005;De Ross et al 2002;Ebesutani et al, 2010;Higa-McMillan et al, 2008;Lahey et al 2008;Nauta et al, 2004;Spence, 1997;Spence et al, 2003) represent important contributions to the research literature on the internal validity of DSM-IV anxiety disorders in youth. With the exception of Higa-McMillan et al (2008) and Lahey et al (2008), all these studies found support for the DSM's conceptualization of anxiety disorders as distinct but related entities.…”

“…Because the items of rating scales used in past CFA studies are categorical (ordinal), the fit of the different factor models require evaluation using estimators that are appropriate for use with categorical data, namely, unweighted least squares, weighted least squares (WLS), or robust WLS (Brown, 2006). Except for Lahey et al (2008) and Spence (1997), past studies that evaluated internal validity of DSM anxiety disorders assessed by rating scales conducted CFAs with estimators that were not appropriate for use with categorical ordinal data (e.g., maximum likelihood estimation [ML]; robust ML) (i.e., De Ross et al, 2002;Nauta et al, 2004;Spence, 1998;Spence et al, 2003) or did not report the type of estimator used in the CFAs (i.e., Chorpita et al, 2005;Ebesutani et al, 2010). Conducting CFAs with estimators that are not appropriate for categorical data has the potential of yielding test statistics and standard errors that are not accurate (Brown, 2006).…”

“…The majority of past studies that evaluated internal validity of symptoms of DSM anxiety disorders used samples of youth drawn from the community (e.g., De Ross et al, 2002;Lahey et al, 2008;Spence, 1997;Spence et al, 2003). Only a few studies (e.g., Chorpita et al 2005;Ebesutani et al, 2010;HigaMcMillan et al 2008) used samples of youth or parents of youth referred to mental health clinics for a range of difficulties (e.g., anxiety, depression, behavioral problems). Thus, it is unclear whether findings from these studies would generalize to clinic samples of youth referred specifically for anxiety.…”