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DSM-IV–Defined Anxiety Disorder Symptoms in South African Children

https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-200211000-00018Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To examine DSM-IV–defined anxiety disorder symptoms in a large sample of normal South African schoolchildren.

Method:

Children completed two self-report questionnaires: the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) and the 41-item version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED).

Results:

Psychometric properties of the SCAS and the SCARED were moderate (convergent validity) to sufficient (reliability). Factor analyses yielded evidence for the presence of a number of hypothesized anxiety categories (i.e., social phobia, panic disorder, fears, and generalized anxiety disorder). Furthermore, anxiety levels of South African children were higher than those of Western (i.e., Dutch) children. Differences were found with regard to the content of prevalent anxiety symptoms among South African and Western children.

Conclusion

Although psychometric properties of the SCAS and the SCARED in South African children somewhat deviated from those obtained in Western countries, both scales seem to be useful for assessing childhood anxiety symptoms in this country.

Section snippets

Participants and Procedure

Participants were 665 children in grades 3 to 7 (mean age = 10.7 years, SD = 1.6) at four primary schools in the neighborhood of Stellenbosch, a relatively small South African city west of Cape Town, with a population of less than 50,000. South African children are defined as “non-Western,” as they live in a country of which population and economy share many features with the other nations on the African continent. Cases containing missing values were deleted. Eventually, complete data sets

Psychometric Properties of SCAS and SCARED in South African Children

The SCAS and the SCARED were reliable: Cronbach α values for the total scores of the SCAS and SCARED were .92 and .90, respectively, and .65 or higher for the various subscales. The only exception was the school phobia subscale of the SCARED, which had an α of .50.

Significant gender differences were found for all SCAS and SCARED scales (SCAS total anxiety score:t589 = 6.4, p < .001; SCARED total anxiety score:t608 = 5.4, p < .001), with girls exhibiting higher levels of anxiety disorder

DISCUSSION

The current study examined DSM-IV–defined anxiety disorder symptoms in a large sample of normal South African schoolchildren by means of two self-report questionnaires: the SCAS and the 41-item SCARED. Results can be catalogued as follows. First, the reliability of both scales was sufficient, but their convergent validity appeared modest. That is, not all SCAS scales were convincingly linked to their SCARED counterparts. Second, while the original factor structure of both questionnaires did not

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    The authors thank the Wes-Kaapse Onderwys Department in South Africa and the staff and children of the four schools for their participation in the study.

    Correspondence to Dr. Muris, Universiteissingel 50, 6229 ER Maastricht, the Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected].

    DOI: 10.1097/01.CHI.0000024843.60748.08

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