The LAOM Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Measuring Anxiety in Children and Adolescents

Abstract

The article introduces a new anxiety scale, called the LAOM (Lestvica anksioznosti za otroke in mladostnike [The anxiety scale for children and adolescents]) for measuring self-reported multidimensional anxiety. The scale has been developed with a special focus on the school setting, using one sample from an elementary school which is representative of fourth- and eighth-grade students in Slovenia ( N = 10,427) and two secondary samples from secondary schools ( N = 1,406; N = 3,253) which are representative of final-year secondary school students in Slovenia. The exploratory (PCA) and confirmatory analyses (CFA) were performed on separate samples for the elementary and the secondary school students. The CFA confirmed that the items on the scale formed three factors which were related to the higher order factor. The structure was stable over different age groups. The scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency and sensitivity. Validity tests are presented in their preliminary forms and will be elaborated upon in future research.