Assessment and Treatment Resources Section
This list includes Treatment Resources and Screening Tool Instruments/Rating Scales for supporting Children and Adolescents experiencing General Anxiety Disorder and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Treatment Resources
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Clinical Practice Guidelines
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s (AACAP) Clinical Practice Guidelines, authored by the Committee on Quality Issues (CQI), are intended to address the assessment and treatment of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. Guideline treatment statements are based upon critical systematic literature reviews contracted to Evidence-based Practice Centers by the US Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
U., Walter, H. J., Bukstein, O. G., Abright, A. R., Keable, H., Ramtekkar,Ripperger-Suhler, J., & Rockhill, C. (2020). Clinical practice guideline for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with anxiety disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 59(10), 1107–1124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2020.05.005
The purpose of this resource is to enhance the quality of care and clinical outcomes for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5). It summarizes empirically-based guidance about the implementation of psychosocial and psychopharmacologic treatment of anxiety in clinical practice as well as expert-based guidance about the assessment of anxiety as an integral part.
Cohen, J. A., Bukstein, O., Walter, H., Benson, S. R., Chrisman, A., Farchione, T. R., Hamilton, J., Keable, H., Kinlan, J., Schoettle, U., Siegel, M., Stock, S., Medicus, J., & AACAP Work Group On Quality Issues. (2010). Practice parameter for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 49(4), 414–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2009.12.020
Highlights the importance of early identification of posttraumatic stress disorder, the importance of gathering information from parents and children, and the assessment
and treatment of comorbid disorders. It presents evidence to support trauma- focused psychotherapy, medications, and a combination of interventions in a multimodal approach.
Parents Medication Guide
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. (2020). Anxiety disorders: Parents medication guide (English).
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. (2020). Anxiety disorders: Parents medication guide (Spanish).
The AACAP and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) developed the Anxiety Disorders: Parents’ Medication Guide (English) (2020) and Anxiety Disorders: Parents’ Medication Guide (Spanish) (2020) which are designed to help parents use the latest research to make informed decisions about getting effective treatment for a child or adolescent with anxiety.
California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC): Anxiety Treatment (Child & Adolescent)
California evidence-based clearinghouse for Child Welfare. (n.d.) CEBC Topic: Anxiety treatment (child & adolescent). CEBC.
The CEBC evaluates replicable programs for the treatment of youth with a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, or with elevated symptoms of anxiety (as demonstrated by a standardized screening or assessment tool) that do not use medication as an essential component of treatment. These programs mainly include outpatient services-usually either individual or group, but occasionally also family therapy or services. Please note that trauma-specific and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) interventions are not included but are listed in the CEBC’s Trauma Treatment topic area.
California Evidence-based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare. (n.d.) CEBC Topic: Trauma treatment- client-level interventions (child & adolescent). CEBC.
Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Professional Community: Effective Treatments for Children with Anxiety Disorders
ADAA Treatment.
ADAA is the only multidisciplinary professional organization in mental health that engages the world’s leading experts who focus on anxiety, depression and co-occurring disorders. ADAA strives to improve patient care by promoting implementation of evidence-based treatments and best practices across disciplines through training, continuing education, and accelerating dissemination of research into practice. ADAA also has a webpage specific to Childhood Anxiety Disorders and a variety of articles on anxiety in children and teens.
Anxiety and Depression Association of America. (2022). AADA Childhood anxiety disorders.
UCLA Center for Child Anxiety, Resilience, Education and Support (CARES) Anxiety Tools: Activities and Tip Sheets
UCLA CARES Center. (n.d.). Anxiety tools: Activities and tip sheets
Experts from the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety, Resilience, Education and Support (CARES) provide various treatment tools, including activities, and tip sheets (in both English and Spanish) to support clinicians devoted to advancing the health and resilience of youth and their families affected by stress and anxiety.
Screening Tool Instruments/Rating Scales
Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)
Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) – Joliet Center.
Beck, A. T., Epstein, N., Brown, G., Steer, R. A. (1988). An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Psychometric properties. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56, 893-897.
A 21-item multiple-choice self-report inventory that is frequently used by clinicians in outpatient and inpatient treatment settings to measure the severity of anxiety in adults and adolescents. Because the items in the BAI describe the emotional, physiological, and cognitive symptoms of anxiety but not depression, it can discriminate anxiety from depression. The age range for the measure is from 17 to 80, however it has been used in peer-reviewed studies with younger adolescents aged 12-16.
Brief Emotional Distress Scale for Youth (BEDSY)
Brief Emotional Distress Scale for Youth (BEDSY).
Spence, S. H., & Rapee, R. M. (2022). The development and preliminary validation of a brief scale of emotional distress in young people using combined classical test theory and item response theory approaches: The Brief Emotional Distress Scale for Youth (BEDSY). Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 85, 102495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102495
An 8-item measure based on anxiety and depression symptoms that load strongly upon the general construct of emotional distress. The scale has strong potential as a brief screen for identifying emotionally distressed young people in community contexts.
Family Accommodation Scale-Anxiety (FASA)
Family Accommodation Scale-Anxiety (FASA).
Lebowitz,E. R., Woolston, J., Bar-Haim, Y., Calvocoressi, L., Dauser, C., Warnick, E., Scahill, L., Chakir, A. R., Shechner, T., Hermes, H., Vitulano, L. A., King, R. A., & Leckmana, J.F. (2012). Appendix one: Family Accommodation Scale- Anxiety (FASA). In Treating childhood and adolescent anxiety: A guide for caregivers. (pp. 305-308). John Wiley & Sons.
A 13-item measure to assess a caregiver’s own engagement in a child’s symptom-related behaviors (e.g., assisting avoidance) and their changes in routines or activities due to the child’s anxiety symptoms.
The child-rated FASA (FASA-CR; provides a child’s assessment of their caregiver’s accommodation of the child’s anxiety symptoms during the past month.
Lebowitz, E. R., Scharfstein, L., & Jones, J. (2015). Child-Report of Family Accommodation in Pediatric Anxiety Disorders: Comparison and Integration with Mother-Report. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 46(4), 501–511. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-014-0491-1
Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale (GAD-7)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Scale (GAD-7)—Child Age 11–17
Spitzer, R. L., Kroenke, K., Williams, J. B., & Löwe, B. (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: The GAD-7. Archives of internal medicine, 166(10), 1092–1097. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092
A 7-item self-administered patient questionnaire that is used to measure or assess the severity of GAD. It has been validated for primary care patients, general population, and adolescents with GAD (Mossman, et al., 2018), that GAD-7 scores may be used to assess anxiety symptoms and to differentiate between mild and moderate GAD in adolescents).
Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children-Second Edition (MASC2)
Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children-Second Edition™ (MASC 2 ™)
March, J. S., & Parker, J. D. A. (2004). The Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC). In M. E. Maruish (Ed.), The use of psychological testing for treatment planning and outcomes assessment: Volume 2 Instruments for children and adolescents (pp. 39–62). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. ISBN-10: 0805843302
A comprehensive multi-rater assessment of anxiety dimensions in children and adolescents aged 8-19 years. It distinguishes between important anxiety symptoms and dimensions that broadband measures do not capture. By indexing the range and severity of anxiety symptoms, the MASC 2 aids in early identification, diagnosis, treatment planning, and monitoring for anxiety-prone youth.
Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale of Youth (OASIS-Y)
Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale for Youth (OASIS-Y)
Comer, J. S., Conroy, K., Cornacchio, D., Furr, J. M., Norman, S. B., & Stein, M. B. (2022). Psychometric evaluation of a caregiver-report adaptation of the Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) for use with youth populations. Journal of Affective Disorders, 300, 341-348, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.12.113.
A caregiver-report adaptation of the 5-item Overall Anxiety Severity and Impairment Scale (OASIS) for use with youth populations to assess past week youth anxiety and interference.
Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS)
Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS)
The Pediatric The Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology Anxiety Study Group. (2002). The Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale (PARS): Development and psychometric properties. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 41(9), 1061–1069.
A 50-item clinician-rated measure used to assess children and adolescent anxiety symptoms, severity, impairment and change over time. PARS is frequently utilized as a primary or secondary outcome measure in psychopharmacologic trials of youth. It is administered to the child and caregiver(s) together.
Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C)
Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C)
Chorpita, B. F., Tracey, S. A., Brown, T. A., Collica, T. J., & Barlow, D. H. (1997). Assessment of worry in children and adolescents: An adaptation of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35(6), 569–581.
A 14-item measure that assesses general characteristics of worry in children and adolescents aged 7 to 17. More specifically the PSWQ-C measures the tendency of youth to engage in excessive, generalized and uncontrollable worry.
Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (and Subscales) (RCADS)
Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (and Subscales) (RCADS)
Chorpita, B. F., Yim, L., Moffitt, C., Umemoto, L. A., & Francis, S. E. (2000). Assessment of symptoms of DSM-IV anxiety and depression in children: a revised child anxiety and depression scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38(8), 835–855. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(99)00130-8
Includes a 47-item youth self-report questionnaire (for ages 8-18 years) with subscales including: separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and low mood (major depressive disorder). It also yields a Total Anxiety Scale and a Total Internalizing Scale.
Additionally, the 47-item Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale – Parent (RCADS-P) version parallelly assesses a caregiver’s report of youth’s symptoms of anxiety and depression across the same six subscales.
A brief 11-item version of the RCADS for Adolescents has also been developed (Radez et al., 2021).
Radez, J., Waite, P., Chorpita, B., Creswell, C., Orchard, F., Percy, R., Spence, S. H., & Reardon, T. (2021). Using the 11-item version of the RCADS to identify anxiety and depressive disorders in adolescents. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 49(9), 1241–1257. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-021-00817-w
Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED)
Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED)
Birmaher, B., Brent, D. A., Chiappetta, L., Bridge, J., Monga, S., & Baugher, M. (1999). Psychometric properties of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED): A replication study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 38(10), 1230–1236. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199910000-00011
Includes 41-item child and parent self-report instruments used to screen for childhood anxiety disorders including general anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder and social phobia. In addition, it assesses symptoms related to school phobia.
Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN)
Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN)
Connor, K. M., Davidson, J. R., Churchill, L. E., Sherwood, A., Foa, E., & Weisler, R. H. (2000). Psychometric properties of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN): New self-rating scale. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 176(4), 379–386.
A 17-item self-rating for social anxiety disorder (or social phobia). The scale is rated over the past week and includes items assessing each of the symptom domains of social anxiety disorder (fear, avoidance, and physiologic arousal).
Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS)
Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS)
Spence S. H. (1998). A measure of anxiety symptoms among children. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 545–566. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(98)00034-5.
Developed to assess the severity of anxiety symptoms broadly in line with the dimensions of anxiety disorder proposed by the DSM-IV.
SCAS Child Version-44 items
SCAS Parent Version-38 items
Preschool Anxiety Scale-28 items
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The materials and information included here are for general informational purposes only. Some of the information may be dated and may not reflect the most current research, developments, and resources. The Academy does not control any information, products, or services on links to internet sites maintained by third parties.