Agreement between child and parent anxiety ratings: a multi-method approach using a picture test and questionnaires Cover Image

Съгласуваност между оценките на тревожност при деца и техните родители: мултиметоден подход чрез картинен тест и въпросници
Agreement between child and parent anxiety ratings: a multi-method approach using a picture test and questionnaires

Author(s): Svetlina Koleva, Mihaela Churussinova
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Psychology
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: childhood anxiety; parent-child agreement; picture anxiety test (B-PAT); multi-method assessment; multi-informant assessment

Summary/Abstract: Anxiety is one of the most common forms of psychological distress in childhood, yet agreement between children’s and parents’ reports is often low to moderate, particularly for internalizing symptoms. The present study examined child–parent agreement in the assessment of anxiety using a multi-method, multi-informant design in a non-clinical Bulgarian sample of 125 children aged 5–8 years (parent data were available for 93 children). The Bulgarian adaptation of the Basel Picture Anxiety Test (B-PAT), including both child and parent versions, was administered alongside the RCMAS, the FSSC-R, and a parent-report measure of internalizing problems. The B-PAT demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency in both versions (α = .82 for children and α = .76 for parents), with values comparable to those reported in the original validation study. The correlation between children’s and parents’ total B-PAT scores was statistically significant but relatively modest (r = .28). Parents also tended to rate their children as more anxious than the children rated themselves. Importantly, agreement was higher when the same method was used by both informants than when different methods were compared, suggesting that method-specific variance may contribute to the discrepancy between child and parent reports.

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