scas CHILD - scoring and interpretation

The SCAS consists of 44 items of which 6 are filler items.

Only the 38 anxiety items are scored. The 6 filler items are NOT scored.

The responses are scored on a 4 point scale ranging from 0 to 3.

Never = 0
Sometimes = 1
Often = 2 
Always = 3

This yields a maximum possible score of 114.

The total score is the sum of items:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 + 16 + 18 + 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 25 + 27 + 28 + 29 + 30 + 32 + 33 + 34 + 35 + 36 + 37 + 39 + 40 + 41 + 42 + 44.

Alternatively, the Total Score may be computed from adding together all the subscale scores if there are no missing items

The sub-scale scores are computed by adding the individual item scores on the set of items as follows:

The positive filler items that are not scored in either the total score or the subscale scores include item numbers 11, 17, 26, 31, 38, and 43

Scores should be interpreted in comparison to population norms for age and gender groups. This is because the mean scores tend to be different between boys and girls and tend to change with age.

Once you have added up the total scores and subscale scores, you can compare the results against the percentile scores and T-scores for the appropriate age and gender of the child.

For children aged 7, you can use the tables for 8-11 years.
For 16-17 year olds the 12-15 year tables can be used.

The SCAS is not a diagnostic instrument and should not be used to determine a clinical diagnosis. It can be used to establish whether a child's anxiety level is substantially higher than other young people of their age group and gender.

A T-score of less than 60 (a percentile score less than 85%) can be said to be in the "normal" range.

A T-score of 60 or more (top 15% or more) suggest higher than normal anxiety, but not necessarily in the clinical range. For this reason, the term "elevated" anxiety is used.

A T-score of 65 means that the child's score is in the top 6% of children.

A T-score of 70 means that the child's score is in the top 2% of children.

Remember that you need to use the T-score templates for age and gender of child

Because the font sizes and layout tends to change when printed out from different computers a fixed scoring template is not provided. These may be developed by the practitioner using a plain acetate sheet to overlay on top of the printed survey to assist in scoring.

Alternatively scores 0 to 3 may be entered into a spread sheet for computing purposes.

The following SPSS code may be useful:-

COMPUTE totalscas =SUM(scas1,scas2,scas3,scas4,scas5,scas6,scas7,scas8,

scas9,scas10,scas12,scas13,scas14,scas15,scas16,scas18,scas19,scas20,

scas21,scas22,scas23,scas24,scas25,scas27,scas28,scas29,scas30,scas32,scas33,

scas34,scas35,scas36,scas37,scas39,scas40,scas41,scas42,scas44).
EXECUTE.

COMPUTE scassep = SUM(scas5,scas8,scas12,scas15,scas16,scas44) .

COMPUTE scassoc = SUM(scas6,scas7,scas9,scas10,scas29,scas35) .

COMPUTE scasocd = SUM(scas14,scas19,scas27,scas40,scas41,scas42) .

COMPUTE scaspanicag =SUM(scas13,scas21,scas28,scas30,scas32,scas34,scas36,scas37,scas39) .

COMPUTE scasphysinj = SUM(scas2,scas18,scas23,scas25,scas33) .

COMPUTE scasgad = SUM(scas1,scas3,scas4,scas20,scas22,scas24) .

EXECUTE.