The RCADS was originally a 47 item self-report scale for young people aged 8 to 18.
Details #
That original 47 item version had five subscales: separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and low mood (major depressive disorder). It also had a parallel questionnaire for parents/guardians (RCADS-P).
There is also a 25 item short form and an 11 item “screening” version. That latter sounds like a bad idea to me: none of our measures has the necessary screening characteristics to work well screening for psychological problems likely to benefit, cost-effectively, from offers of interventions, see the glossary item on screening and one of my shiny apps which allows you to simulate the likely screening quality of a measure given prevalence of the target issue, sensitivity and specificity: https://shiny.psyctc.org/apps/Screening/.
The 25 item version is quite widely used for assessment and measurement of change. It has three response levels scored 0 = never, 1 = sometimes, 2 = often and 3 = always and it has an anxiety subscale score (15 items; range 0–45), a depression subscale score (10 items; range 0–30), and a total score (range 0–75). The prorating rules are that scores are prorated (the mean of the completed items used to give imputed score had all items been scored) when no more than three items (anxiety) or two items (depression) are missing; if more items are missing, the subscale is coded as missing. The total score is coded as missing if any subscale is missing.
With reasonable conditions, the RCADS is licensed for use without reproduction fees (hooray!) and there are fair number of translations and some referential data.
There is a good page about the RCADS at CORC and an extensive set of pages at https://rcads.ucla.edu/.
Try also #
Chapters #
Not covered in the OMbook.
Online resources #
Shiny screening app: https://www.psyctc.org/psyctc/glossary2/screening/.
Dates #
First created 16.iii.25, expanded a bit 26.vi.26.
