Maternal Daily Diary Report in the Assessment of Childhood Separation Anxiety

Abstract

The current study evaluated the feasibility and validity of a parent-report measure of separation anxiety, the Separation Anxiety Daily Diary (SADD). Mother and child participants consisted of three groups: 96 children (aged 4–15 years) with separation anxiety disorder, 49 children with “other” anxiety disorders, and 43 healthy controls. The SADD assesses the frequency of anxiety-provoking and non-anxiety-provoking separations, along with associated parental anxiety, thoughts, child behaviors, and corresponding parental reactions. The SADD demonstrated acceptable compliance and convergent validity with hypothesized measures. Substantial improvement in the prediction of diagnostic group membership was shown when SADD items assessing child symptoms were added to information gathered from a separation anxiety symptom questionnaire.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by grant PP001-68701; 105314-116517/1, “Etiology and Psychological Treatment of Separation Anxiety Disorder in Childhood,” awarded to Silvia Schneider by the Swiss National Science Foundation. We would like to thank the families who participated, as well as the research assistants and graduate students who worked on the TAFF project at the University of Basel. We also thank Andrea Meyer (University of Basel) and Terry Lewin (Hunter New England Mental Health) for their assistance with the statistical analyses.

Notes

Note. SAD = separation anxiety disorder; GAD = generalized anxiety disorder; PD = panic disorder; OCD = obsessive-compulsive disorder; ADHD = attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; ODD = oppositional defiant disorder.

^a Primary diagnosis status was decided based on the highest severity rating assessing overall interference; comorbid diagnoses represent all other diagnoses where DSM–IV diagnostic criteria were met.

¹Bonferroni adjustments were applied, with alpha set at p = .017 given three post hoc group comparisons.

²Interested readers may contact the first author for the exact statistics.

³Two-tailed chi-squared analyses did not reveal any significant group differences on the percentage of missing data (all ps > .017).

Note. SADD = Separation Anxiety Daily Diary; SAD = separation anxiety disorder. Means with different subscripts differ significantly at p < .017.

*p < .017. ***p ≤ .001.

Note. SAI–P = Separation Anxiety Inventory: Parent version (Schneider & In-Albon, in press); SADD = Separation Anxiety Daily Diary.

^a The separation anxiety group is the reference category.

***p ≤ .001; no. odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals.

Note. SADD = Separation Anxiety Daily Diary; ILC–C/P = Inventory for the Assessment of Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents: Child and Parent versions (Mattejat et al., 1998, 2005); RCMAS–C/P = Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale: Child and Parent versions (Pina et al., 2001; Reynolds & Richmond, 1978); SAI–C/P = Separation Anxiety Inventory for Children: Child and Parent versions (Schneider & In-Albon, in press); BAI = Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck et al., 1988).

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer L. Allen

Jennifer Allen is now at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London.