The Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Children’s Perceptions of Parental Anxiety Scale

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health conditions among Americans, and children of anxious parents are at increased risk for developing an anxiety disorder themselves. Parental expressions of anxiety and anxious parenting may contribute to the development of child anxiety by promoting the transmission of anxious cognitive processing styles from parents to children; however, little is known about children’s cognitive appraisals of their parents’ anxiety symptoms, and there is no existing instrument to assess children’s perceptions of parental anxiety. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Children’s Perceptions of Parental Anxiety Scale – Mother Version (CPPAS-MV). A series of four studies were conducted with anxious mothers and their 9- to 17-year-old children. Study 1 utilized focus groups with 10 mother-child dyads and review by a panel of anxiety disorder experts to develop an initial inventory of items for the CPPAS-MV. In a sample of 300 dyads, Study 2 found that the CPPAS-MV consists of six factors, which demonstrated strong internal consistency. Based on an independent sample of 146 dyads, preliminary results of Study 3 supported a bifactor model with a general factor and six subscales. The CPPAS-MV demonstrated strong internal reliability, as well as convergent, concurrent, discriminant, and incremental validity with theoretically relevant cognitive factors (e.g., interpretation bias) and clinical outcomes (e.g., anxiety, depression). Preliminary measurement invariance findings are also discussed. Finally, the CPPAS-MV demonstrated strong test-retest reliability in a sample of 58 dyads. Findings support the CPPAS-MV as a valid and reliable measure of children’s perceptions of maternal anxiety for use in future research investigating the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. It may also have clinical value in preventive interventions, child or family-based psychotherapy, and/or parent skills training.