Factor Structure, Reliability and Validity of the Development of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-Short Version

Anxiety is considered as one of the most common disorders during childhood and is associated with adverse functional, psychological, social and educational consequences for children. It is a necessity to screen children's anxiety. This study aimed to determine the factor structure, reliability and validity of the Development of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-Short Version.

I terms of methodology, this study is a descriptive developmental one with a survey design. Its statistical population included all students who were 8-12 years old in primary schools in Rasht during the academic year of 2019-2020. Using the cluster random sampling method, 500 students were selected as the statistical sample of this study. The research instrument was the Enhanced Spence Children's Anxiety Scale. The construct validity was performed based on two methods of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Characteristics curve analysis was used to determine the cutting point. Assessing the reliability of the questionnaire in 3 sections of internal consistency, stability and homogeneity was performed using Cronbach's alpha correlation, the test-retest method with intra-cluster internal correlation, and correlation coefficient of each item to the total and correlation of items together, respectively. 

275 (55%) of the participants were female and the other 225 (45%) were male. Factor analysis showed that this scale has five components: Market panic, generalized anxiety, specific phobia, social anxiety and separation anxiety with desirable fitness indices. Also, the values of Cronbach's alpha ​​for the whole scale was 0.939 and for the dimensions of market panic, generalized anxiety, specific phobia, social anxiety, and separation anxiety were 0.812, 0.894, 0.803, 0.709, and 0.801, respectively. The most appropriate cutting point of this scale was 24.5.

The confirmatory factor structure, reliability and validity of the Development of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale-short version are desirable for research, diagnostic and screening applications in Iranian society.