Title Development and validation of a short form of the Chineseversion of the State Anxiety Scale for Children

Objectives. The availability of a valid, reliable, and suitable tool that accurately measures and differentiates anxiety levels of children is crucial before designing appropriate interventions to minimize their apprehension and enhance their coping ability. Regrettably, there is a lack of such a simplified instrument for use in busy clinical settings where time constrains makes the use of more comprehensive questionnaires unfeasible. The study aimed at developing a short form of the Chinese version of the State Anxiety Scale for Children (CSAS-C) for use in busy clinical settings and at testing psychometric properties of the new form. Design. The study was divided into two phases with phases one aimed at developing a short form of the CSAS-C, while phase two aimed at testing psychometric properties of the new form. Results. Using exploratory factor analysis, a subset of 10 items, which was highly correlated with scores obtained from the full form and, which had acceptable internal consistency was developed. The psychometric properties of this shot form have been empirically tested, showing adequate internal consistency reliability and excellent construct validity. Conclusion. This study addresses a gap in the literature by developing a 10 items short form of the CSAS-C. Results indicate that this short form is an appropriate and objective assessment tool for measuring anxiety levels of Chinese children in a busy clinical setting where time constraints make unfeasible the use of the full form.