Adaptação da escala de ansiedade pré-escolar, de S. Spence

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence, Rapee, McDonald & Ingram, 2001) in a sample of Portuguese children of preschool age. The scale was answered by 561 mothers of children between 3 and 7 years old. Concerning the structure of anxiety symptoms, an exploratory factor analysis points to a solution composed of five factors (general anxiety, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, fear of physical injury and separation anxiety) as more appropriate. Were also found satisfactory internal consistency; external validity (by correlation with the CBCL Internalizing Scale) and discrimination with a sample of children referred for outpatient clinical psychology because of anxiety disorders were also satisfactory. We obtained a positive correlation between increasing age and severity of symptoms expression but no differences due to gender.