Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 16, 2026

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study in Psychological Counseling
Published on: January 17, 2025
Childhood anxiety in a diverse primary care population: parent-child reports, ethnicity and SCARED factor structure
Frances J Wren1, Eric A Berg1, Lynda A Heiden1
1Drs. Wren and Heiden, Mr. Berg, Ms. Ohlson, and Ms. Kinnamon are with the Divisions of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA; Dr. Bernal is with Kaiser Permanente Northern California, San Jose; Drs. Bridge and Birmaher are with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh; and Dr. Heiden is with the Department of Psychology, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA.
Objective:
To explore in a multiethnic primary care population the impact of child gender and of race/ethnicity on parent and child reports of school-age anxiety and on the factor structure of the Screen for Childhood Anxiety and Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED).
Method:
A consecutive sample of 515 children (8 to <13 years) and their parent presenting for primary care completed self-report (C) and parent-report (P) versions of the SCARED-41.
Results:
Neither SCARED scores nor parent-child difference varied significantly with race/ethnicity. Predictors of higher SCARED scores were less parental education, younger child age and female gender. Exploratory factor analysis conducted separately for SCARED-C and SCARED-P yielded four factors. There was large variation in factor structure between SCARED-C and SCARED-P and across ethnic and gender subgroups, greatest for somatic/panic/generalized anxiety and Hispanic children.
Conclusions:
Primary care triage of anxious children requires data from both the parent and child and must go beyond cross-sectional symptom inventories. Clinicians must elicit from each family their perhaps culturally bound interpretation of the child's somatic and psychological symptoms.
Related Concept Videos
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety Disorder
Panic Disorder
Anxiety: Overview
Individuals with anxiety often experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including sweating, trembling, tachycardia, and disturbances in sleep patterns. These symptoms vary in intensity and frequency but are generally disruptive and distressing.
Surveys
Ethnic Identity within a Larger Culture
