Cross-cultural examination of the tripartite model with children: data from the Barretstown studies

The Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children (PANAS-C) and the Physiological Hyperarousal Scale for Children (PH-C) were administered to a group of 240 children from European countries to determine their utility in examining the tripartite model of anxiety and depression in a cross-cultural sample. Most of the children (n = 196) had been diagnosed with a medical illness; the remainder were siblings of these youngsters (n = 44). Only slight variations were noted in items between this sample and samples from the United States. Despite these minor differences, 3 distinct scales measuring the positive affect, negative affect, and physiological hyperarousal constructs of the tripartite model were identified. These findings illustrate that the PH-PANAS-C provides a useful measure of the tripartite model in a cross-cultural sample of youth. The findings also demonstrate that the tripartite model is generalizable to a cross-cultural milieu.