Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale RCADS Child Self Report
Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale RCADS Child Self Report overview
Creator and Context
The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is a 47 item self report measure of anxiety and depression symptoms in children and young people.
It was developed by Bruce Chorpita, Linda Yim, Catherine Moffitt, Lori Umemoto and Sarah Francis, and published in 2000. It builds on items from the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale and adds DSM-IV major depression items. Copyright is held by Chorpita and Spence, and the official distribution source is the UCLA Child FIRST site.
Presenting Conditions
The RCADS produces six subscales mapped to DSM anxiety and depressive disorders:
Separation anxiety disorder (7 items)
Social phobia (9 items)
Generalised anxiety disorder (6 items)
Panic disorder (9 items)
Obsessive compulsive disorder (6 items)
Major depressive disorder (10 items)
It also produces a Total Anxiety score and a Total Internalising score.
Administration
Self completed by the young person, on paper or read aloud item by item where needed. Each item is rated Never, Sometimes, Often or Always, scored 0 to 3. It takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes.
Desired Audience
Children and young people aged 8 to 18. Norms are indexed by school grade and gender rather than age, which matters when converting for UK school years.
The RCADS is the workhorse of child and adolescent mental health services because it does something few measures do: it separates anxiety into six disorder aligned profiles rather than reporting a single anxiety score. That profile is what tells you whether you are looking at separation anxiety, social phobia or panic, and it directs the treatment plan accordingly.
Considerations
The RCADS is not a diagnostic instrument.
T scores are based on US school grades. UK services need to convert, as a UK school year is one higher than the equivalent US grade.
Norms are validated on the English versions. Interpret translated versions with caution.
It is too developmentally advanced for many young people with learning disabilities.
Copyright terms restrict third party commercial distribution and unauthorised scoring tools. Confirm permission before commercial deployment.
How to score the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale RCADS Child Self Report
Conducting the assessment
The young person rates all 47 items from Never (0) to Always (3). Subscale raw scores are summed, then converted to T scores using the grade and gender tables. Do not score a subscale with more than two missing items.
Interpretation
Raw subscale scores are converted to T scores with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10.
A T score of 65 or above is the borderline clinical threshold, roughly the top 7 percent of young people.
A T score of 70 or above is above the clinical threshold, roughly the top 2 percent.
Raw score ranges are: generalised anxiety 0 to 18, OCD 0 to 18, separation anxiety 0 to 21, social phobia 0 to 27, panic 0 to 27, major depression 0 to 30, Total Anxiety 0 to 111 and Total Internalising 0 to 141.
Clinical Considerations
Read the subscale profile, not just the totals. Two young people with the same Total Anxiety score can need entirely different interventions.
Use the RCADS alongside the parent version. Agreement between young people and parents on internalising symptoms is typically modest, and the difference is itself clinically informative.
Repeat at review points to track change, using the same informant each time.
Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale RCADS Child Self Report use cases
Assessing anxiety and depression symptoms in young people
Producing a disorder aligned anxiety profile to guide treatment
Routine outcome monitoring in CAMHS and school based services
Research in child and adolescent mental health
Category
Anxiety
Research Summary
Chorpita, B. F., Yim, L., Moffitt, C., Umemoto, L. A., & Francis, S. E. (2000). Assessment of symptoms of DSM-IV anxiety and depression in children: A Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 38(8), 835 to 855.
Chorpita, B. F., Moffitt, C. E., & Gray, J. (2005). Psychometric properties of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale in a clinical sample. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43(3), 309 to 322.
Piqueras, J. A., Martin-Vivar, M., Sandin, B., San Luis, C., & Pineda, D. (2017). The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale: A systematic review and reliability generalization meta analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 218, 153 to 169.
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