Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale-Short Version -Chinese Version

Description

The Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) is one of the widely used tools for assessing anxiety in children internationally. It has been translated into at least 22 languages and is used extensively around the world. Research has demonstrated that the SCAS has a clear factor structure, good internal consistency, and reasonable criterion validity, showing a strong correlation with other anxiety symptom scales and a moderate correlation with children’s depression scales. However, the original SCAS contains 44 items, which limits its application in many research contexts. To address this, Ahlen and others simplified the SCAS, developing a short version (SCAS-S) that contains only 19 items. The SCAS-S also exhibits a clear factor structure and matches the original in terms of accuracy for screening anxiety disorders, convergent validity, and discriminative validity. Liu Ran and others conducted confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of measurement invariance across genders, and reliability analysis with SCAS-S scores reported by 527 children aged 9-12 years. The results indicated that the five-factor structure of SCAS-S fits well; SCAS-S met strong invariance requirements among different genders within the school-age group. The overall scale scores and factor scores of SCAS-S correlated as expected with being bullied, emotional regulation, and perceived parental marital conflict. The internal consistency coefficient (α) for the total scale was 0.86, while the α coefficients for each subscale were greater than 0.6, with the mean item correlation ranging from 0.34 to 0.41, indicating good internal consistency for each factor. The Chinese version of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale-Short Version (SCAS-S) utilizes a four-point Likert scale, where 0 (never) to 3 (always) indicates higher scores reflecting more severe anxiety symptoms.

Authors and Contact Email

Liu Ran et al.
Contact email information not available.

Purpose

To measure anxiety levels in school-aged children.

Test Year

2022

Administration Method and Scoring

A total of 556 paper questionnaires were distributed, and 527 valid questionnaires were returned, resulting in a valid response rate of 94.78%. The scoring uses a four-point Likert scale.

Reliability and Validity

The overall scale’s internal consistency α coefficient was 0.86, and all subscales had α coefficients greater than 0.6. The average item correlation ranged from 0.34 to 0.41. The SCAS-S demonstrates good reliability and validity in the domestic school-age child population.

Factors and Subscales

– SEP (分离焦虑症, Separation Anxiety Disorder)
– SAD (社交焦虑症, Social Anxiety Disorder)
– PD (惊恐障碍, Panic Disorder)
– SP (特定恐惧症, Specific Phobias)
– GAD (广泛性焦虑障碍, Generalized Anxiety Disorder)

Keywords

Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale, SCAS, SCAS-S, anxiety assessment, children, reliability, validity

Items in Chinese

1. 我担心各种事情。
2. 我怕黑。
3. 要我自己一个人呆在家里，我会害怕的。
4. 要考试时我会感到恐慌。
5. 我担心离开父母。
6. 我怕我会在别人面前出丑。
7. 我担心我的学校功课会做得很差。
8. 我担心家里有人会出事。
9. 我无缘无故地突然觉得自己好像透不过气来。
10. 我似乎不能摆脱头脑里一些不好的或愚蠢的想法。
11. 我无缘无故地突然开始颤抖或发抖。
12. 我担心什么不好的事情会在自己身上发生。
13. 在高处或电梯里我会很恐慌。
14. 根本没有什么原因，突然间我觉得非常恐慌。
15. 我怕小虫子或蜘蛛。
16. 无缘无故地，我突然头晕目眩好像要昏倒了。
17. 我的心会突然没有原因地跳得很快。
18. 我害怕呆在狭小封闭的地方（如隧道或小房间）。
19. 如果要我离家在外过夜，我会觉得很恐慌。

Items in English

1. I worry about a lot of different things.
2. I am afraid of the dark.
3. I get scared when I have to be alone at home.
4. I feel panic when I have to take a test.
5. I worry about being away from my parents.
6. I am afraid I will embarrass myself in front of others.
7. I worry that I will do poorly in my schoolwork.
8. I worry that something bad will happen to someone in my family.
9. I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe for no reason.
10. I seem to be unable to get rid of bad or silly thoughts in my head.
11. I suddenly start shaking or trembling for no reason.
12. I worry that something bad will happen to me.
13. I feel panicked in high places or in an elevator.
14. I feel very panicked all of a sudden with no reason at all.
15. I am afraid of small bugs or spiders.
16. I suddenly feel dizzy and like I might faint for no reason.
17. My heart suddenly beats very fast for no reason.
18. I am afraid of being in small, enclosed places (like tunnels or small rooms).
19. I feel panicked if I have to stay away from home overnight.

References

刘然, 龚杰, 王孟成等. 中文Spence儿童焦虑量表-简版的心理测量学检验[J]. 中国临床心理学杂志, 2022, 30(02):346-349+323. DOI:10.16128/j.cnki.1005-3611.2022.02.020.
Ahlen S. Development of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale – Short Version (SCAS-S)[J]. Journal of psychopathology and behavioral assessment, 2018, 40(2).