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Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) - Subject Baseline

This measure appears in the following time-points: Baseline.

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Related Construct

Description of Measure

The Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS; Reynolds & Richmond, 1985, 2000) is a 37-item, self-report instrument designed to assess the level and nature of anxiety. A response of "Yes" indicates that the item is descriptive of the subject's feelings or actions, whereas a response of "No" indicates that the item is generally not descriptive. A Total Anxiety score is computed based on 28 items, which are divided into three anxiety subscales: physiological anxiety (10 items about somatic manifestations of anxiety such as sleep difficulties, nausea and fatigue), worry/oversensitivity (11 items measuring obsessive concerns about a variety of things, most of which are typically vague and ill-defined, as well as fears about being hurt or emotionally isolated), and social concerns/concentration (7 items measuring distracting thoughts and fears that have a social or interpersonal nature). The remaining nine items on the RCMAS constitute the Lie subscale. Because scores are derived from affirmative responses, a high score indicates a high level of anxiety or lie on that subscale. A high score on the physiological anxiety scale suggests that the youth has certain kinds of physiological responses that are typically experienced during anxiety. A high score on the Worry/oversensitivity scale may suggest that the youth internalizes much of the anxiety and may thus become overburdened with trying to relieve the anxiety. Finally, a high score on the Social concerns/concentration subscale suggests that they youth my feel some anxiety that they are unable to live up to the expectations of other significant individuals in their lives. (Reynolds & Richmond, 2000).

Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a three factor model (using the three subscales for physiological anxiety, worry/oversensitivity, and social concerns/concentration) fit the data well, allowing for several correlated error terms within factors (NFI=0.892; NNFI=0.937; CFI=0.943; RMSEA=0.028). The alpha for the Total Anxiety Score (28-items) is .87. In addition, one-factor CFA models for each of the subscales fit well, with some allowances for correlated error terms. The reliability coefficients for the items that constitute the subscale and the values from confirmatory factor analyses for single factors models are as follows:

The lie scale also fit the data reasonably well in a one-factor model, allowing for correlated error for items # 7 and #10. The values for this model were Alpha: .73; NFI: .913; NNFI: .895; CFI:.924; RMSEA:.068.

The scales calculated from this instrument are:

The lie subscales are used to detect youth who are "faking good" (e.g., "I tell the truth every single time"). The lie score can range from 0 to 9. Validity of results is questionable when the Lie and Total Anxiety scores are two SD above their respective means (Reynolds & Richmond, 1985). As stated in the manual, Scores falling beyond 2 SD from the mean suggest the need for further information, consultation and follow-up. A higher score on the total anxiety score indicates higher levels of anxiety.

The RCMAS manual states "use of the norms segregated by age, ethnicity, and sex is recommended". Our syntax only corrects the raw score for age and gender because the manual does not offer norms for Hispanic participants.

Data Issues

There is one missing value for the corrected lie scale (50099) because the subject is 13 years old and the scoring algorithms only apply to youth 14 and older.

References