ERIC Number: EJ1489377
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Dec
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1362-3613
EISSN: EISSN-1461-7005
Available Date: 0000-00-00
How Well Can Commonly Used Anxiety Scales Detect Treatment Outcomes in the Context of Autism?
Huilin Chen1; Jeffrey J. Wood2; Connor M. Kerns3; Eric A. Storch4; Philip C. Kendall5; Gaia Scerif1; Cathy Creswell1
Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice, v29 n12 p2991-3001 2025
Anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health challenges in autistic children, yet there is limited evidence on effective tools to measure treatment outcomes. Previous research with non-autistic children has found that the Child Anxiety Impact Scale, Parent Version achieved good diagnostic accuracy when measuring treatment outcomes and performed better than a commonly used symptom measure. However, this has not been evaluated for autistic children. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Child Anxiety Impact Scale, Parent Version in autistic children and compared its utility against other anxiety symptom measures, to detect treatment outcomes as assessed by a gold-standard diagnostic interview, the Anxiety and Related Disorders Interview Schedule, Child Version, Parent Interview with the Autism Spectrum Addendum. Data were used from 212 children (aged 7-13 years) who participated in a randomised controlled trial. Receiver-operating characteristic curve analyses were conducted, and subsequent subgroup analyses were conducted using DeLong tests. Results demonstrated that the Child Anxiety Impact Scale, Parent Version had strong psychometric properties, with total scores significantly outperforming other measures in predicting post-treatment recovery from anxiety diagnoses. These findings have implications for future choices of treatment outcome measures in research and clinical practice.
Descriptors: Anxiety, Outcomes of Treatment, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Psychometrics, Symptoms (Individual Disorders), Clinical Diagnosis, Children, Early Adolescents, Diagnostic Tests, Test Validity, Test Reliability
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (DHHS/NIH)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Childhood Autism Rating Scale; Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; Child Behavior Checklist; Social Responsiveness Scale; Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
Grant or Contract Numbers: R01HD080098
Author Affiliations: 1University of Oxford, UK; 2University of California, Los Angeles, USA; 3The University of British Columbia, Canada; 4Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA; 5Temple University, PA, USA

Peer reviewed
Direct link
