Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index: factor structure, gender and age differences

Knezić, Gordana. (2007). Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index: factor structure, gender and age differences. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Jokić-Begić, Nataša].

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Abstract

Anxiety sensitivity refers to fears of anxiety symptoms that are based on beliefs that these symptoms have harmful consequences (McNally, 1994). The aim of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Croatian version of Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman, Fleisig, Rabian, & Peterson, 1991), and to investigate gender and age differences in subjects' results on this instrument. We collected data on 463 students of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade in one primary school in Zagreb and one primary school in Karlovac. Principal components analysis revealed hierarchical structure, with three lower-order factors and one higher-order factor. The three factors reflected concerns with (1) physical symptoms of anxiety, (2) psychological symptoms of anxiety, and (3) social aspects of anxiety. Internal consistency reliability was satisfying for the whole CASI (�± = .86), for the first (�± = .81) and second factor (�± = .77), while for the third factor reliability was not satisfying (�± = .50). A two-way analysis of variance performed on the overall result showed significant main effects for gender (F=19.23, df=1, p<.05) and age (F=3.07, df=3, p<.05). Girls showed higher anxiety sensitivity than boys. There was a trend of increase in anxiety sensitivity in the sixth grade and a slow decrease in the seventh and eighth grade. The same trend was obtained for the Physical factor, for which the main effects of gender (F=26.45, df=1, p<.05) and age (F=3.76, df=3, p<.05) also proved to be significant. For Psychological factor, the significant effects were the main effect of age (F=2.69, df=3, p<.05) and the interaction between gender and age (F=3.24, df=3, p<.05). In girls, anxiety sensitivity increases in the sixth grade, while in the seventh grade it somewhat decreases to the level on which it remains in the eighth grade. In boys, anxiety sensitivity remains almost the same in the fifth, sixth, seventh grade, but decreases dramatically in the eighth grade. For Social factor, no main effect or interaction proved to be significant.

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