Assessing anxiety with the Child Behavior Checklist and the Teacher Report Form

We evaluated the utility of Anxiety scales for the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Teacher Report Form (TRF). The scales (CBCL-A; TRF-A) were examined using mothers and teachers of anxiety-disordered (AD; 157 mothers, 70 teachers) and non-anxiety-disordered (NAD; 100 mothers, 17 teachers) children. Separate samples of parents and teachers of AD (mothers = 145, fathers = 120, teachers = 137) and NAD (mothers = 35, fathers = 29, teachers = 27) children cross-validated the original findings. CBCL-A and TRF-A scores significantly discriminated AD children from NAD children and correlated significantly with other measures of child anxiety. The CBCL-A and TRF-A were sensitive to treatment changes. Relative to the CBCL/TRF Anxious/Depressed syndromes and Internalizing dimensions, the CBCL-A and TRF-A improved prediction of anxiety status. Relative to Achenbach, Demenci, and Rescorla's [Achenbach, T. M., Demenci, L., & Rescorla, L. A. (2003). DSM-oriented and empirically based approaches to constructing scales from the same item pools. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 32, 328–340] CBCL Anxiety subscale, the CBCL-A predicted comparably. Findings are discussed in terms of the CBCL-A and TRF-A as clinical tools.