Psychometric Evaluation of the SCARED-5 Across Multiple Informants: A Brief Screening Tool for Anxiety in Youth

The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) is a 41-item rating scale that measures anxiety problems in youth. The SCARED has versions for multiple informants and strong psychometric support. A five-item version (SCARED-5) has been proposed as a brief anxiety screening tool, but limited research has examined its psychometric properties. This study evaluated the SCARED-5 in two samples of youth (Study 1: N = 109 youth, M_age = 12 years; Study 2: N = 175 youth, M_age = 8 years). Results supported the one-factor structure and internal consistency reliability of the SCARED-5 across informants. Total scores from the SCARED-5 were significantly associated with total scores from the full SCARED. Mother and child ratings on the SCARED-5 successfully distinguished anxious and non-anxious youth, but father ratings did not. Receiver operating characteristic analyses supported a clinical cutoff score of 2 on the SCARED-5 for screening purposes. These findings provide preliminary validation for the SCARED-5 as an efficient anxiety screening tool in clinical and research settings. Future research should examine the SCARED-5 in more diverse samples and validate informant-specific cutoff scores, particularly for father ratings.