Using Evaluative Criteria to Review Youth Anxiety Measures, Part I: Self-Report

J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2021 Jan-Feb;50(1):58-76. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2020.1802736. Epub 2020 Sep 11.

Abstract

Evidence-based assessment serves several critical functions in clinical child psychological science, including being a foundation for evidence-based treatment delivery. In this Evidence Base Update, we provide an evaluative review of the most widely used youth self-report measures assessing anxiety and its disorders. Guided by a set of evaluative criteria (De Los Reyes & Langer, 2018), we rate the measures as Excellent, Good, or Adequate across their psychometric properties (e.g., construct validity). For the eight measures evaluated, most ratings assigned were Good followed by Excellent, and the minority of ratings were Adequate. We view these results overall as positive and encouraging, as they show that these youth anxiety self-report measures can be used with relatively high confidence to accomplish key assessment functions. Recommendations and future directions for further advancements to the evidence base are discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Anxiety Disorders* / diagnosis
  • Anxiety* / diagnosis
  • Child
  • Humans
  • Psychometrics
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Self Report