Child Anxiety Evaluation Questionnaire
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ScribdTranslationsChild Anxiety Evaluation Questionnaire
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ScribdTranslationsQUESTIONNAIRE FOR EVALUATION OF EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES RELATED TO
ANXIETY IN CHILDREN - SCARED-R
Name and authors of the original instrument: Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders-
Revised (SCARED-R, Muris, Merckelbach, Schmidt & Mayer, 1999)
Autores e data da versão portuguesa:Pereira e Barros, 2010
General Description
It is an instrument with 69 items, aimed at evaluating different
dimensions of anxiety problems in children, according to the DSM-IV: anxiety of
separation, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social phobia, and anxiety to
school, specific phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder
traumatic. There are two versions, for children and for parents. Respondents have to
classify the frequency with which they experience each of the symptoms: 0 (never or almost
never), 1 (sometimes), 2 (frequently).
Assessed dimensions
Ansiedade de separação, Ansiedade generalizada, Perturbação de pânico, Fobia social,
School phobia, Specific Phobia (situational/environmental type, blood/injections, animals)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder. Are obtained
scores for each of the dimensions of anxiety and an overall score.
Common questions
Powered by AIUtilizing frequency-based ratings in the SCARED-R instrument allows for a nuanced understanding of symptom severity and prevalence by capturing how often particular anxiety symptoms are experienced. This approach helps distinguish between transient and chronic symptoms, provides insights into the intensity and impact of symptoms on daily functioning, and aids in tracking changes over time or in response to interventions, thereby offering a dynamic assessment perspective .
Potential challenges in using a standardized instrument like SCARED-R across different cultural contexts include varying interpretations of anxiety symptoms due to cultural beliefs and norms, differences in expressions of distress, and potential language barriers that could affect the understanding of items. Cultural differences may also influence the response style. These challenges necessitate cultural adaptation and validation of the instrument to ensure its accuracy and reliability in different settings .
Having both child and parent versions of the SCARED-R instrument is significant as it provides a comprehensive evaluation of the child’s anxiety from multiple perspectives. The child’s self-report gives insight into their personal experience and feelings, while the parent's version can highlight observations that the child might not express or recognize. This dual approach helps in cross-verifying symptoms, reducing bias, and increasing the reliability and validity of the assessment results .
Scoring both individual anxiety dimensions and overall anxiety is important as it provides a detailed picture of a child's anxiety profile. Calculating individual dimension scores helps identify specific areas of concern and tailor interventions accordingly. An overall anxiety score provides a general assessment of the severity and extent of anxiety problems, allowing for broader comparisons and assessments of general intervention effectiveness .
The SCARED-R plays a role in diagnosing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in children by including specific items that assess symptoms characteristic of OCD, such as obsessions and compulsions. By obtaining scores for these dimensions, it aids in identifying potential OCD, distinguishing it from other anxiety disorders, and determining the need for further clinical evaluation or intervention .
The SCARED-R instrument aligns with the DSM-IV by assessing dimensions of anxiety that are categorized similarly to those in the DSM-IV, including separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The inclusion of these specific dimensions allows for a structured and systematic evaluation of anxiety disorders as classified by the DSM-IV criteria .
The inclusion of various anxiety types such as separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social phobia, among others, enhances the comprehensiveness of the SCARED-R by ensuring that a wide spectrum of anxiety-related issues can be identified. This broad scope allows clinicians to capture less obvious but clinically significant anxiety manifestations, providing a complete understanding of a child’s anxiety profile and improving the accuracy and depth of the assessment .
The SCARED-R is crucial for early intervention in children with anxiety-related disorders as it helps in the early identification of specific anxiety symptoms, allowing for timely and targeted therapeutic interventions. Early detection and intervention can prevent the progression of anxiety disorders, reduce their impact on the child’s development, prevent comorbidities, and improve long-term outcomes by addressing issues before they become more ingrained and difficult to treat .
The SCARED-R instrument assesses various dimensions of anxiety in children, including separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social phobia, school phobia, specific phobias (situational/environmental type, blood/injections, animals), obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Respondents (children or their parents) rate the frequency of symptoms using a scale: 0 for 'never or almost never,' 1 for 'sometimes,' and 2 for 'frequently' .
The SCARED-R differentiates between different anxiety disorders by evaluating and scoring the presence of symptoms across specific dimensions. Each dimension of anxiety, such as separation anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, etc., is assessed separately with a set number of items tailored to those specific symptoms. This allows for individual scores for each type of anxiety, providing a nuanced understanding of a child's specific anxiety-related emotional disturbances .