30-item version of the revised child anxiety and depression scale in Chilean adolescents: psychometric properties

Abstract

The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) has excellent psychometric properties and is one of the most commonly used instruments throughout the world. The present study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of the RCADS-30 in a non-clinical sample of Chilean children and adolescents using confirmatory factor analysis and multidimensional Rasch analysis. A community sample of 1034 Chilean adolescents completed the RCADS-30. Different reliability and consistency measures, confirmatory factor analysis and multidimensional Rasch analysis were employed. The results confirmed the 6-factor model, high internal consistency values, and moderate-to-high test-retest reliability of the RCADS-30 in Chilean adolescents. A low Average Variance Extracted (AVE) value was detected in one factor. With respect to multidimensional Rasch analysis, the correlation of residuals were appropriate to indicate the local independence, 6 items showed slight misfit values in a rating scale structure, and no Differential Item Functioning (DIF) was detected by gender. The RCADS-30 is an appropriate instrument to measure emotional disorders in Chilean adolescents, and it can be used for early detection of emotional symptoms in the adolescent’s population. Future studies will have to study the convergent validity and analyze the psychometric properties of RCADS-30 in adolescent clinical population, in order to address measurement precision.