Screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders (SCARED): Psychometric properties in an African-American parochial high school sample

Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) for a community sample of African-American high school students. Method: The 41-item SCARED was administered to 111 adolescents (57 girls; mean age 15.75) in an urban parochial school. Item frequency, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity were assessed. Results: Approximately 30% of the sample had scores high enough to warrant further assessment for anxiety disorders, and girls reported significantly higher anxiety symptoms than boys. Internal consistency (α = .89) and test-retest reliability (r = 0.47) over 6 months for the SCARED's total score were good. The SCARED's total score was positively correlated with other measures of anxiety symptoms and inattention and was negatively correlated with perceived self-worth. Unlike the five-factor structure reported for primarily white samples, only three factors emerged for this African-American sample. Conclusions: The SCARED shows utility as a self-report anxiety screening instrument in a community sample of African-American youths.