[Reliability and validity of the screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders in high school students in the 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake stricken areas].

Objective: To test the reliability and validity of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED-41) in high school students in the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake stricken areas.

Methods: A multistage cluster random sampling method was adopted to select 2729 year 10 and year 11 students from three high schools in the earthquake stricken areas for the questionnaire survey using SCARED-41. The internal consistency and construct validity of the SCARED-41 were evaluated through Cronbach's alpha and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, respectively.

Results: The Guttman split-half correlation for the SCARED-41 was 0.940, with the five subscales ranging from 0.734 to 0.860. The Cronbach's alpha for the SCARED-41 was 0.937, with the five subscales ranging from 0.646 to 0.862. Seven common factors were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis, with a percentage of cumulative explained variance of 49.9%. Social phobia contributed the most, which accounted for 11.9% of the total variance and retained all prior assigned items. Somatic/panic and general anxiety came second. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that a modified model combining the somatic/panic and general anxiety factors as one generated a better fit than the originally assumed construct.

Results: SCARED-41 has good psychometrics properties. With adequate reliability and validity, SCARED-41 can be widely applied for assessing anxiety of students in earthquake stricken areas.