Assessing children's state anxiety

Anxiety is an important component of children's pain and is routinely assessed in pain research. Two forms of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory have been used frequently by researchers investigating children's pain and state anxiety (form C-1 and Y-1). We were unable to find psychometric information about this tool when used with a population of hospitalized children. Therefore, we undertook to assess reliability and validity, and identify problem items using data from 881 hospitalized children (aged 5-18 years) whom we had tested. Considering results of all analyses together, we conclude that the tools lack validity and reliability, and contain many problem items that are in need of revision. J Pain Symptom Manage 1998;16:80-86. (C) U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committee, 1998.