The Icelandic translation of the Child Anxiety Impact Scale (CAIS) : preliminary psychometric properties of the CAIS scale in a community sample of Icelandic children.

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are common in children and adolescents; they can interfere with their daily lives in many domains. The Child Anxiety Impact Scale (CAIS) was developed to measure the impact of functioning impairment for anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. There is a child version (CAIS-C) and parent version (CAIS-P). The goal of this study was to translate the scales into Icelandic to evaluate their psychometric properties in an Icelandic sample. Participants were 73 children and 196 caregivers from 12 schools across the country. Their age range was from 7 – 15 years old. The participants answered an online survey with questions regarding the CAIS, Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS), and general background information. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the three-factor structure: School, Social, and Home/family is an acceptable fit for CAIS-P, and that the internal consistency for the scale and subscale were very good (α = 82 - .93). Also, the convergent validity of the scale is good since it correlated strongly to RCADS and most of its subscales.