Revised Children's Anxiety and
Depression Scale (and Subscales)
(RCADS)
Overview
The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is a 47-item, youth self-
report questionnaire with subscales including: separation anxiety disorder, social
phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder,
and low mood (major depressive disorder). It also yields a Total Anxiety Scale (sum
of the 5 anxiety subscales) and a Total Internalizing Scale (sum of all 6 subscales).
Additionally, The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale – Parent Version
(RCADS-P) similarly assesses parent report of youth’s symptoms of anxiety and
depression across the same six subscales.
The RCADS and the RCADS-P can be used for tracking symptoms as well as
providing additional information for assessment.
Terms of use
The RCADS and its derivative works (inclusive of translations) are copyrighted by
Chorpita and Spence. They are available for use through Dr Chorpita’s UCLA
resource page (https://www.childfirst.ucla.edu/resources/) in accordance with the
Terms of use (in the user guide).
Scale
RCADS - Self-Reported (8-18 years old)
RCADS – Parent version
Subscales
Separation anxiety disorder (Child Self-Reported)
Separation anxiety disorder (Parent Reported)
Social phobia (Child Self-Reported)
Social phobia (Parent Reported)
Generalised anxiety (Child Self-Reported)
Generalised anxiety (Parent Reported)
Panic disorder (Child Self-Reported)
Panic disorder (Parent Reported)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (Child Self-Reported)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (Parent Reported)
Low mood (major depressive disorder; Child Self-Reported)
Low mood (major depressive disorder; Parent Reported)
Suitability
The RCADS can be completed by young people aged from 8 to 18 years and the
RCADS-P can also be completed by the parent or carer of young people aged
across the same age groups. Clinical experience indicates that RCADS is too
developmentally advanced for use with young people with learning disabilities, but
has been found to be useful for some CYP with mild learning difficulties (Law &
Wolpert, 2014).
Administration
The questionnaire takes between five and ten minutes to administer. Both parent
and child questionnaires can be given to the appropriate respondent to complete
themselves. Alternatively, in order to ensure that each item is understood by the
respondent, or to gain additional information about each response, the
questionnaires can be administered directly by the clinician who can ask follow-up
questions.
Working remotely with RCADS
Adaptations and derivatives are not authorised without written permission from
Chorpita and Spence. Regarding any adaptations, the instrument may not be altered
to remove the copyright or other text in the margins regarding the source and terms.
Microsoft Word Versions or Interactive PDF Versions of RCADS do not exist. If you
work remotely with your service user and have access to PDF versions of the
questionnaire:
The free Adobe Acrobat Reader does have commenting tools that allow you to add,
circle or highlight text and then save the PDF with these 'comments'
If you are a practitioner going through the questionnaire verbally online and can
share screen, we feel it works well for the child or young person to be able to see you
edit the questionnaire as you go through it
The questionnaire can also be edited this way at the service user’s end, although do
experiment with this yourself to check its suitability for those you work with - not
everyone will find this equally user-friendly and practice or advice may help
Find out more here
Scoring
The RCADS and the RCADS-P can be scored using spreadsheets or syntax
available from the developer (link: https://www.childfirst.ucla.edu/resources/).
The young person’s equivalent US School Grade must be entered, which is grade
one below the UK school year. A "t-score" is calculated on these
spreadsheets/syntax from a raw score (total score of the scale or subscale). The
measures can also be scored manually following the instructions on the Scoring Aids
for the RCADS and RCADS-P
Child RCADS scoring aid
Parent RCADS scoring aid
Interpretation
The ‘clinical thresholds’ for the overall score were established using the anxiety
disorders interview schedule for DSM-IV, child and parent versions (ADIS-IV-C/P;
Silverman & Albano, 1996) as a comparison (Chorpita et al., 2005). The thresholds
for sub-scales are set using normative data.
A t-score of 65 means that the score is roughly in the top 7% of scores of un-referred
young people of the same age (described as borderline clinical by the developer)
and a score of 70 means that the score is roughly in the top 2% of scores of un-
referred young people of the same age (described as the clinical threshold by the
developer).
Other versions
Ebesutani et al. (2012) developed a 25-item version of the RCADS to reduce client
burden and administration time. All anxiety items primarily reflected a single ‘broad
anxiety’ dimension, which informed the subsequent development of a reduced 15-
item Anxiety Total scale. Scoring the RCADS-25 and RCADS-25-P uses converted
scores on the total scale and both sub-scales divided into scoring. More information
in this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26834091
There is also an adapted version of the RCDAS to accommodate characteristics of
Young People with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The Anxiety Scale for Children (ASC-
ASD) has Parent and Child versions, which are available
here https://research.ncl.ac.uk/neurodisability/leafletsandmeasures/anxietyscal
eforchildren-asd/asc-asdchild/
Psychometric properties
Property Definition RCADS
Internal Whether several items that propose Good reliability on subscales and total scale (Chorpita, Moffitt, & Gray, 2005) on a c
consistency to measure the same general Internal consistency for the RCADS subscales ranged from adequate to excellent in
construct produce similar score sample (Donnelly, Fitzgeralds, Shevlin, & Dooley, 2019). The RCADS shows robust
consistency reliability in different assessment settings, countries, and languages (Pi
Vivar, Sandin, San Luis, & Pineda, 2017).
Test-retest Degree to which the same One-week test-retest coefficients were good (Chorpita et al., 2000).
reliability respondents have the same score
after a period when a trait should not
have changed.
Convergent Degree to which two measures of Good convergent validity (Esbjørn et al., 2012; Bouvard, Denis, & Roulin, 2015; Don
validity constructs that theoretically should be Fitzgeralds, Shevlin, & Dooley, 2017).
related, are in fact related.
Concurrent If a measure correlates well with a The RCADS has good concurrent validity with the Children’s Depression Inventory a
validity measure that has previously been Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (Chorpita et al., 2005)
validated.
Translation
The RCADS is available in English (US), Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Korean, Norwegian, Persian
(Farsi), Polish, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish and Urdu. Use of norms and interpretation of T-scores should be done cautiously with
non-English versions. Translated versions are available here: https://www.childfirst.ucla.edu/resources/
Further translations are allowed to be conducted with the agreement of the authors (conditions available on the RCADS user
guide).
References
Bouvard, M., Denis, A., & Roulin, J. (2015). The French version of the revised child anxiety and depression scale (RCADS) in a
nonclinical sample. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 74, 119–27
Chorpita, B. F., Moffitt, C., & Gray, J. (2005). Psychometric properties of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale in a
clinical sample. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43, 309-322.
Chorpita, B. F., Yim, L. M., Moffitt, C. E., 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, 835-855.
Donnelly, A., Fitzgerald, A., Shevin, M., & Dooley, B. (2019). Investigating the psychometric properties of the revised child anxiety
and depression scale (RCADS) in a non-clinical sample of Irish adolescents. Journal of Mental Health, 28(4), 345-356
Ebesitani, C., Korathu-Larson, P., Nakamura, B., Higa-McMillan, C., & Chorpita, B. (2017). The Revised Child Anxiety and
Depression Scale 25-Parent Version: Scale Development and Validation in a School-Based and Clinical
Sample. Assessment, 24(6), 712-728.
Ebesutani, C., Korathu-Larson, P., Nakamura, B., Higa-McMillan, C., and Chorpita, B. (2017). The Revised Child Anxiety and
Depression Scale 25-Parent Version: Scale Development and Validation in a School-Based and Clinical
Sample. Assessment, 24(6), 712-728
Ebesutani, C., Reise, S. P., Chorpita, B. F., Ale, C., Regan, J., Young, J., Higa-McMillan, C., & Weisz, J. R. (2012). The revised
child anxiety and depression scale short version: Scale reduction via exploratory bifactor modeling of the broad anxiety
factor. Psychological Assessment, 24, 833–45
Esbjørn, B. H., Somhovd, M. K., Turnstedt, C., Reinholdt-Dunne, M. L. (2012). Assessing the revised child anxiety and depression
scale (RCADS) in a national sample of Danish youth aged 8–16 years. PLoS One, 7, e37339
Law, D., & Wolpert, M. (2014). Guide to using outcomes and feedback tools with children, young people and families. UK: Press
CAMHS.
Mash, E. J., Hunsley J. (2007). Assessment of child and family disturbance: A development-systems approach. In: Mash EJ,
Barkley RA, eds. Assessment of childhood disorders fourth edition. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 3–52
Piqueras, J. A., Martín-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, 153-169
Rodgers, J., Wigham, S., McConachie, H., Freeston M., Honey, E., Parr, JR. Development of the Anxiety Scale for Children with
autism spectrum disorder (ASC-ASD) Autism Research, 2016, 9(11), 1205-1215.
Rodgers, J., Wigham, S., McConachie, H., Freeston, M., Honey, E., Parr, J. R. (2016). Development of the Anxiety Scale for
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASC-ASD). Autism Research, 9(11), 1205-1215.
Silverman, W., & Albano, A. (1996). The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children–IV (Child and parent versions). San
Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
