Measuring Anxiety in Children: The Importance of Separate Mother and Father Reports

Abstract

BackgroundPrevious research suggests that it is important to use parental reports when assessing children’s anxiety, but it remains unclear to what extent there are differences between mothers’ and fathers’ scores and whether these potential differences have any repercussions for the psychometric properties of the scale being used.ObjectiveThis study was conducted to investigate parental differences on the Parent version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders-Revised (SCARED-RP), a rating scale for measuring child anxiety symptoms. The second aim was to re-examine the reliability and validity of the SCARED-RP, in light of these possible differences.MethodsThe SCARED-RP and the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) were administered to parents of clinically anxious children (n = 81), and control children (n = 108). All children (n = 189) completed the SCARED-R.ResultsSignificant correlations between mother and father reports were found within the clinically anxious sample. Mothers showed significantly more correspondence with their children in the control group than fathers. The SCARED-RP internal consistency on total scale was excellent (mothers: .94; fathers: .94) and moderate to good for all subscales (from .66 Situational-Environmental Phobia to .93 Animal Phobia). The SCARED-RP differentiated well between clinically anxious and control children (mother and father data). The concurrent validity was supported by strong correlations with the CBCL anxious-depressed scale.ConclusionDifferences between mother and father reports suggest the importance of obtaining information from both parents separately. Furthermore, the SCARED-RP is a useful instrument for assessing children’s anxiety disorder symptoms in clinical and research settings.

DNA Methylation at the DAT Promoter and Risk for Psychopathology: Intergenerational Transmission between School-Age Youths and Their Parents in a Community Sample

“…Further studies should evaluate these variables through clinical observations and/or clinical interviews, to obtain more robust data on psychological profiles of the subjects ( 76 , 77 ). Nonetheless, one merit of the present study was to consider the point of view of both mothers and fathers on the psychological functioning of their child, maintaining the differences that have been demonstrated in previous literature ( 54 – 56 ) and that concur to a more accurate representation of offspring mental health.…”

“…In this study, statistical analyses were performed on raw scores. Furthermore, as suggested by several studies ( 54 – 56 ), data were obtained by mothers and fathers (independently). In fact, international literature has emphasized that parents may be discordant in the observation of their children.…”

The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): Informant Discrepancy, Measurement Invariance, and Test–Retest Reliability

“…As such, we were unable to examine whether mothers or fathers were more or less discrepant with child-report. Recent work by Jansen et al [42] suggests that mothers are less discrepant with their child relative to fathers, illustrating the need for further research. Another shortcoming was that not all participants completed every form.…”

A Comparison of Attachment representations to Mother and Father using the MCAST

“…By conceptualizing the mother-child and father-child attachment relationships not in isolation, but aside one another, it is possible to understand whether some responses, or representational features, are unique with a particular caregiver. Whilst some scholars may claim that it is unnecessary to force a distinction in the assessment of attachment to mother and father at this stage, recent evidence (Jansen et al, 2017) indicates the value of assessing the attachment relationship to each caregiver specifically.…”

“…Although there is evidence that fathers begin to be more involved in caring for their children by early childhood (Cabrera, Fitzgerald, Bradley & Roggman, ), research regarding attachment to father in early childhood is scarce and not up to date (Bretherton, ; Di Folco & Zavattini, ; Psouni, ), apart from some recent contributions (Bacro & Florin, ; Bureau, Martin, Yurkowski et al , ; Di Folco, Messina, Zavattini & Psouni, ; Jansen, Bodden, Muris, Doorn & Granic, ; Psouni, Di Folco & Zavattini, ) all of which conclude the need for more research addressing the specific impact of the father‐child attachment relationship to the child's development and mental health. Empirical information over the past years is in its nature mainly descriptive and concerns features of the father‐child relationship, such as focus on play and risk‐taking, and competing activities aimed at challenging emotion regulation, and the control of aggressive behavior (Flanders, Leo, Paquette, Pihl & Séguin, ; Grossmann, Grossmann, Fremmer‐Bombik, Kindler, Scheuerer‐Englisch & Zimmermann, ; Paquette, ).…”