Reliability and validity of Nepalese version of Spence Children?s Anxiety Scale.

Objectives: To establish a valid and reliable translated version of Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) for Nepalese population. Methods: A standard translation-back-translation procedure was used followed by evaluation of semantic, conceptual and society equivalence by the committee and changes were made according to recommendations. This corrected version was pretested and a final version was developed. Reliability was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha value and the retest reliability was also tested using correlation coefficient between items and scale. Results: The results indicated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85). Conclusion: A valid and reliable Nepalese version of Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) was developed which can be used for research and clinical assessment of child patients with anxiety. Keywords: Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale; Reliability; Translation; Validation