The assessment of anxiety symptoms in preschool-aged children: the revised Preschool Anxiety Scale.

The purpose of this study was to test the validity and factorial structure of a modified version of the Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence, Rapee, McDonald, & Ingram, 2001). The measure was completed by 764 mothers and 418 fathers of children aged 3 to 5 years. After removing, two items tapping obsessive compulsive symptoms, confirmatory factor analysis showed that a four-factor model (social anxiety, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, specific fears) all loading on a higher order "anxiety" factor, provided an optimal fit for the data. The total scale and 4 subscales showed strong internal consistency (alphas = .72-.92), 12-month stability y (rs = .60-.75) and maternal/paternal agreement (rs = .60-.75). Scores on the scale also showed expected correlations with a measure of emotional distress, diagnosed anxiety disorders, and behavioral indicators of anxiety.