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Background: The Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) is a widely used selfreport questionnaire for the assessment of anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents with well documented predictive validity of the total score and subscales in internalizing and mixed clinical samples. However, no data exist on the screening efficiency in an inpatient sample of adolescents. Aim: To examine the psychometric properties and screening efficiency of the MASC in a high comorbid inpatient sample. Method: The current study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses to investigate the predictive value of the MASC total and subscale scores for the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-age children - Present and Lifetime version (K-SADS-PL), DSM-IV diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and social phobia (SoP) in a highly comorbid inpatient sample of adolescents (11 - 18 years). Results: The MASC total score predicted any anxiety disorder (AD) and GAD moderately well. Physical symptoms predicted GAD moderately well. Social anxiety and separation anxiety/panic did not predict SoP or SAD, respectively. Physical symptoms and harm avoidance also predicted the presence of major depressive disorder. Conclusions: The findings support the utility of the MASC total score to predict the presence of any AD and GAD. However, the utility of the social anxiety and separation anxiety/panic subscales showed limited utility to predict the presence of SAD and SoP, respectively. The MASC has probably a more limited function in screening for AD among a highly comorbid inpatient sample of severely affected adolescents. Our results should be interpreted in the light of a small, mixed sample of inpatient adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The relationship between parental and child depressive symptoms has been found to be stronger for mothers than for fathers. Does this mean that fathers' mental health is less important in the context of child depressive symptoms? The goal of the current study is to test whether the degree of fathers' depressive symptoms moderate the relationship between mothers' and children's depressive symptoms. Our knowledge about such interaction effects between mothers' and fathers' symptoms is limited. Methods We examined depressive symptoms in 190 children (age 7-13, 118 boys) referred to child community clinics and their parents. Mothers and fathers reported on their own and their child's depressive symptoms, whereas children only reported on their own symptoms. Results Structural equation modeling revealed significant interaction effects of mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms on mother- and father-reported child depressive symptoms, while no effects were found for child reports. When fathers reported few depressive symptoms for themselves, no relationship between mothers' and children's depressive symptoms was observed. The more depressive symptoms in fathers, the stronger the relationship between mothers' and children's symptoms. Conclusions Fathers' mental health may be a protective factor in the relationship between mothers' and children's depressive symptoms. Thus, researchers and practitioners would benefit from considering not only depressive symptoms in mothers, but also in fathers, when examining and working with child depressive symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the association between parental anxious self-talk, parenting behaviors, and youth anxious self-talk. Parents and youth ages 7 to 14 (M = 10.17; N = 208; 53% male) seeking treatment for anxiety were evaluated for anxiety symptoms, youth anxious self-talk, parental anxious self-talk, and youth-perceived parenting behavior. Youth and parental anxious self-talk were assessed by both child and parent self-reports; youth-perceived parenting behaviors were assessed by youth-reports. Parenting behaviors included separate ratings of paternal and maternal (a) acceptance, (b) psychological control, and (c) firm/behavioral control. Correlational analyses revealed that maternal anxious self-talk, but not paternal anxious self-talk, was significantly associated with youth's anxious self-talk. Maternal anxious self-talk had an inverse association with youth-perceived maternal acceptance, but was not associated with youth-perceived maternal psychological or behavioral control. Higher youth-perceived maternal acceptance was significantly associated with lower youth anxious self-talk. Youth-perceived maternal acceptance partially mediated the association between mother's anxious self-talk and youth's anxious self-talk. However, this mediation effect disappeared when taking into account youth depressive symptoms. Results are discussed in relation to clinical implications and future directions in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the psychometric properties, including discriminant validity and clinical utility, of the youth self-report and parent-report forms of the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) among youth with anxiety disorders. The sample included parents and youth (N = 488, 49.6% male) ages 7 to 17 who participated in the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study. Although the typical low agreement between parent and youth self-reports was found, the MASC evidenced good internal reliability across MASC subscales and informants. The main MASC subscales (i.e., Physical Symptoms, Harm Avoidance, Social Anxiety, and Separation/Panic) were examined. The Social Anxiety and Separation/Panic subscales were found to be significantly predictive of the presence and severity of social phobia and separation anxiety disorder, respectively. Using multiple informants improved the accuracy of prediction. The MASC subscales demonstrated good psychometric properties and clinical utilities in identifying youth with anxiety disorders.