Psychometric study of the Positive and Negative Affect Scales for Children and Adolescents (PANAS-C) in Mexican population

The Positive and Negative Affect Scales for Children and Adolescents (PANAS-C) is one of the most used instruments for research in the field of basic, positive and clinical psychology. The objective of the present paper was to study the psychometric properties, provide descriptive data (mean, standard deviation, and percentiles) and identify possible differences in the PANAS-N scores, according to sex and age in the Mexican population. A sample of 1,047 high school students was used (M=14.09; SD=2.29; 55.2% female). They were administered the PANAS-C scales, the Depression Scale of the Center for Epidemiological Studies (D-SCE) and the Gaudibility Scale for Children and Adolescents (GSCA) (enjoyment modulators). The internal structure of two factors, Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA), was corroborated through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (chi 2((169))= 947.17; p<.001, CFI = .96, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .07) and the factors showed adequate internal consistency values (AP: alpha = .828; omega = .830, and AN: alpha = .819; omega = .820). Likewise, the relationships with the other variables were as expected, except for the relationship between positive affect and depressive symptomatology, which was not significant. The PANAS-C are an appropriate instrument to assess positive and negative affect in the child and adolescent population of Morelia (Mexico).