Informant discrepancies in adolescent anxiety assessment: The roles of adolescent depression and school avoidance.
= 145-204 for primary analyses) to examine whether adolescent depression, school avoidance, and adolescent-caregiver (dis)agreement on top problems for treatment moderate adolescent-caregiver score discrepancies on anxiety scales. Results suggest adolescents and caregivers provide similar scores for adolescents' anxiety symptoms. However, adolescents who self-report higher levels of depression and school avoidance behavior may self-report higher panic/somatic symptom levels and generalized anxiety levels than their caregivers attribute to them. Adolescent-caregiver agreement on top problems for treatment was not associated with adolescent-caregiver agreement on anxiety scale scores. Carefully assessing experiences of somatic and worry-related symptoms may be beneficial for adolescents presenting with depression and/or school avoidance. Moreover, identifying reasons why adolescents and caregivers provide similar anxiety scale scores but vary in endorsing anxiety as a top problem for treatment or vice versa would aid in further understanding adolescent-caregiver informant discrepancies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Authors
- Shannon M. Bennett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5008-6637)
- Stephanie Rohrig (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7396-2070)
- Blair D. Batky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0440-5430)
- Hanna M. Smith
- Angela W. Chiu
Institutions
- University of Nevada, Reno (US)
- Cornell University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Psychological Assessment
- Published
- 2026-09-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0001503
- Primary Topic
- Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00