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Anxiety in Children and Adolescents Rated by Patients, Parents, and Teachers: Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of an ICD-10 and DSM-IV-based Rating Scale in a Large Clinical Sample

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Abstract

This study examined the psychometric properties of the German Self-Report and Parent Report Rating Scale for Anxiety Disorders (SRS-AD and PRS-AD), and a shortened teacher version of the PRS-AD (TRS-AD) in a large clinical sample. Data were collected from 585 children, adolescents and young adults with psychiatric disorders (aged 6–21 years), 821 parents and 378 teachers. Factorial validity, reliability and discriminating validity of the scales were examined and the agreement between different informants was assessed. Analyses were performed in the complete sample including a wide range of different psychiatric disorders as well as in a subsample of children, adolescents and young adults with anxiety disorders. Confirmatory factor analyses mostly supported a model with first-order factors according to the subscales and a second-order overall anxiety factor. Only for the SRS-AD analysed in the sample of participants with anxiety disorders, the results did not clearly favour a first-order solution with correlated factors according to the subscales or the second-order solution adopted for the other questionnaires. Internal consistencies for the total scale and subscales were mostly satisfactory. Significant mean differences between anxious and non-anxious participants were found for the mean total scores of the SRS-AD and PRS-AD, but not for the TRS-AD. The informant agreement was low-to-moderate. We concluded that the SRS-AD, PRS-AD and TRS-AD demonstrate satisfactory psychometric properties for use with clinically-referred children and adolescents.

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Acknowledgements

We kindly thank Deirdre Elmhirst (Elmhirst Medical Writing Services) for carefully reading the manuscript.

Author Contributions

C.D.: performed the data analyses and wrote the manuscript. A.G.: developed the questionnaires used in this study together with M.D. and critically revised the manuscript. H.G.: was responsible for the data collection and critically revised the manuscript. M.D.: designed the study, developed the questionnaires used in this study together with A.G. and critically revised the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Christina Dose, Anja Goertz-Dorten & Manfred Doepfner

  2. School for Child and Adolescent Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at the University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Anja Goertz-Dorten, Hildegard Goletz & Manfred Doepfner

  3. Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy of the Christoph-Dornier-Foundation for Clinical Psychology at the University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Anja Goertz-Dorten & Manfred Doepfner

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  1. Christina Dose
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  2. Anja Goertz-Dorten
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  4. Manfred Doepfner
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Correspondence to Manfred Doepfner.

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Conflict of Interest

Manfred Doepfner and Anja Goertz-Dorten received royalties from treatment manuals, books and psychological tests published by Guilford, Hogrefe, Enke, Beltz, and Huber, including the Self-Report Rating Scale for Anxiety Disorders and the Parent/Teacher Report Rating Scale for Anxiety Disorders which are evaluated in this paper. The remaining authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The Medical Ethical Committee of the University Hospital of Cologne, Germany, declared that no formal consent is required for this type of retrospective research involving data collected in routine clinical care and analysed anonymously. All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

All parents declared their consent that data on their child gathered during the time of treatment at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and the School for Child and Adolescent Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (AKiP) at the University Hospital of Cologne, e.g., questionnaire data, may be used for research purposes. Adolescents/young adults who were already of legal age provided this consent themselves.

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Dose, C., Goertz-Dorten, A., Goletz, H. et al. Anxiety in Children and Adolescents Rated by Patients, Parents, and Teachers: Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of an ICD-10 and DSM-IV-based Rating Scale in a Large Clinical Sample. J Child Fam Stud 27, 3185–3199 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1160-y

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