Discriminant validity Clause Samples
Discriminant validity. The majority of analyses suggest adequate discriminant validity between HC’s and patients for Total, GA, and SA subscales of the SCARED. For the treatment-seeking sample, both child and parent reports of anxiety were significantly lower for HCs than anxious participants. This is consistent with prior studies that utilize diagnostic interviews to test the SCARED in treatment-seeking anxious patients and youth without psychopathology (▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2009) and those with non-anxiety-related disorders (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 1999; ▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2013; ▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2000; ▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2004). However, results for child-report in the non-treatment- seeking sample were less compelling. Specifically, child-reports of anxiety did not discriminate between HCs and SAD or GAD on the Total scale and GA subscale, nor between HCs and comorbid GAD+SAD on the SA subscale. Few studies have assessed discriminant validity in anxious patients diagnosed with the disorders measured by the SCARED’s specific subscales, or among patients with comorbid anxiety diagnoses. Across all analyses and scales, and largely irrespective of informant, youth comorbid for GAD+SAD had more anxiety symptoms than other patients—as indexed by higher Total, GA, and SA scores (Figs 1-2, purple lines). Thus, youth with comorbid diagnoses had more severe levels of anxiety than individuals with a single diagnosis. This replicates prior work in patients tested with clinical interviews where severity was measured with questionnaires (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇-▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2012). Support for discriminant validity between patient subtypes was also obtained across the majority of analyses among the treatment-seeking sample. GA scores were higher for GAD and GAD+SAD than SAD alone, while SA scores were higher for SAD and GAD+SAD than GAD alone. A similar pattern emerged for parent-report among the community sample. However, little evidence for discriminant validity was obtained for child- report in the community sample. Taken together, this suggests that in a treatment-seeking sample, the SCARED is able to discriminate between children with anxiety disorders and those free of any psychopathology, and between sub-types of anxious patients based on the subscale that is utilized. In a sample drawn from the community, child-report on the SCARED may be more heterogeneous and reflect a continuum of anxiety symptoms rather than the categorical expression of clinical characteristics. Yet, data from other studies demonstrate that in commun...
Discriminant validity. One-way ANOVAs tested whether child- and parent-report scores on Total, GA, and SA subscales differed across diagnostic groups (HC, GAD, SAD, GAD+SAD). Discriminant validity will be confirmed if: 1) each anxious group (GAD, SAD, GAD+SAD) has higher Total, GA, and SA scores than the HC group; 2) the GAD and SAD groups differ such that GAD have higher GA scores than SAD, and SAD have higher SA scores than GAD; and 3) the GAD+SAD group has higher GA scores than the SAD group, and SA scores than the GAD group. Significant group differences were interrogated with Bonferroni pairwise comparisons. Because six comparisons were conducted for each scale, the p-value was adjusted for multiple comparisons for each scale (critical p-value = 0.05/6 = .008). When ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇-▇▇▇▇ tests identified non- normally distributed data (see Table 2), results were confirmed with Kruskal-Wallis tests. ▇▇▇▇▇-▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ tests revealed unequal variance for Total, GA, and SA scores across groups in both studies. However, ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇’▇ T3 post-hoc tests largely confirmed findings (see supplementary materials for further details).
Discriminant validity. (Table 2, Figure 2)—Discriminant validity for the SCARED was largely supported for parent-, but not child-report data. One-way ANOVAs showed groups (HC, GAD, SAD, GAD+SAD) differed for Total child (F(3, 330) = 3.70, p Author Manuscript < .05, η2 = .033) and parent (F(3, 330) = 72.98, p < .001, η2 = .402) scores, GA parent (F(3, 330) = 444850, p < .001, η2 = .309) scores, and SA child (F(3, 330) = 4.95, p < .01, η2 = . 043) and parent (F(3, 330) = 37.75, p < .001, η2 = .258) scores, but not GA child scores (F(3, 330) = 2.35, p > .05, η2 = .021). Results from post-hoc pair-wise comparisons between group scores on each subscale are depicted in Figure 2 (Figure 1; see Table S2 for mean difference scores and corresponding p-values for Bonferroni pairwise comparisons). For parent-report, HCs scored consistently below all three anxious groups on the Total scale. ▇▇▇+SAD scored above GAD and SAD on the Total scale; GAD+SAD and GAD scored above SAD on the GA subscale; and GAD+SAD and SAD scored above GAD on the SA subscale. For child-report, HCs from the full or matched sample scored below SAD on the SA subscale (see supplementary materials for further details). Author Manuscript