The revised version of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED-R): Treatment sensitivity in an early intervention trial for childhood anxiety disorders

Objectives. The revised version of the Screen for Childhood Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED-R) is a recently developed self-report questionnaire for measuring DSM-IV defined anxiety disorder symptoms in children. The current study examined the treatment sensitivity of the SCARED-R. Methods. Thirty-six children (aged 8-13 years) who fulfilled the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and/or social phobia received either group or individual cognitive-behavioural treatment. Children completed the SCARED-R and a traditional measure of childhood anxiety, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC), at three points in time: (1) 6 months before treatment (i.e. baseline), (2) pre-treatment, and (3) post-treatment. Results. Results showed that children's SCARED-R and STAIC scores did not change from baseline to pre-treatment, but significantly declined from pretreatment to post-treatment. An additional finding of the present study was that group and individual CBT were equally effective in reducing children's anxiety symptoms. Conclusions. It can be concluded that the SCARED-R reliably taps treatment effects and thus should be regarded as a useful self-report index of childhood anxiety in clinical and research settings. Furthermore, the data support the notion that CBT should be generally regarded as an efficacious intervention for anxiety disordered children.