The latent profile analysis of Chinese adolescents' anxiety: Examination and validation

The main purpose of current study was to investigate the characteristics of anxiety in Chinese adolescents using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) with the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders. LPA was conducted with a sample of 2158 participants aged 12-20 years from 3 urban schools in Beijing, China. Results suggested a best-fitting model with three profiles: Low Group with Diffuse Types of Anxiety, Moderate Group with Predominant Generalized and Social Anxiety and High Group with Predominant Somatization Anxiety. Additional analyses using Regression Mixture Modeling suggested that older adolescents and girls were significantly more likely to be classified into the High Group with Predominant Somatization Anxiety. Finally, in support of the construct validity of the anxiety profiles, differential negative cognitions, especially the subscales measuring cognitions about social threat and physical threat, predicted the anxiety profiles. The current study supports an intuitive model of adolescent anxiety in a large, non-Western population with clinical implications for anxious adolescents in China.