ORIGINAL ARTICLE Factor Structure of the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) in a Community Sample of Hong Kong Chinese Adolescents Siu Mui Chan • Chi Hung Leung Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract The current study tested the factor structure of the 41-item SCARED in assessing anxiety in a sample of Hong Kong adolescents. Data were collected from 5,226 youths (54.5 % boys) aged 12–18. Results showed that the scale and the five subscales had high internal consistency. However, confirmatory factor analyses showed that the original five-factor model did not fit the data collected in this sample. Instead, the results revealed a seven-factor model consisting of one second-order factor of anxiety and seven first-order factors: the four original factors of Gen- eral Anxiety, Panic/Somatic Syndromes, Social Anxiety, and School Phobia and three new factors representing different aspects of Separation Anxiety. Group invariance in the Boys and Girls models was found. It is recommended that the three new factors (Fear of Loneliness, Separation Fear, Worry about Harm) be further developed by adding new items so as to enhance the content and construct validities of the SCARED when used with Hong Kong adolescents. Keywords SCARED Á Hong Kong adolescents Á Chinese Á Anxiety Á Gender differences Introduction Among different kinds of child and adolescent mental disorders, the World Health Organization lists anxiety disorder in the priority list of resource allocation because of its high degree of associated impairment and high fre- quency of occurrence [1]. Studies have shown that ado- lescent anxiety is associated with concurrent adjustment problems and appears to impede adolescent psycho-social development [e.g., 2, 3]. It also predicts subsequent psy- chiatric problems including anxiety disorders, depression, and conduct disorder [4, 5]. Anxiety disorders are also highly comorbid with other psychiatric problems such as depression and substance abuse disorders [6]. National surveys conducted in Western countries such as Britain and the United States reported that lifetime prevalence rate of adolescent emotional disorders (depression or anxiety disorders) is high [7, 8]. In Hong Kong, only a few epidemiological surveys on anxiety dis- orders have been conducted but the reported prevalence is worthy of attention. In one, the prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and sub-threshold GAD in 15-to- 19 year old adolescents was estimated to be 2.6 and 7.2 % respectively, rates which are comparable to those reported in Western studies [9]. In another, the one-year prevalence of panic disorder in people aged between 15 and 65 was 3.89 %, which was high when compared to that in Taiwan (0.2 %) and in the United States (2.2 %) [10]. The impeding effects and high prevalence of anxiety disorders suggest that early detection and intervention are essential. Although the onset age of anxiety disorders can be as early as two years and the median onset age is found to be in adolescence [10–12], many adolescents suffering from anxiety disorders are left unidentified and only a small percentage receive professional help [13, 14]. One possible S. M. Chan (&) Department of Psychological Studies, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong e-mail: smho@ied.edu.hk C. H. Leung Department of Special Education and Counseling, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong 123 Child Psychiatry Hum Dev DOI 10.1007/s10578-014-0509-8