Maternal daily diary report in the assessment of childhood separation anxiety

Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, University of Basel The current study evaluated the feasibility and validity of a parent-report measure of separation anxiety, the Separation Anxiety Daily Diary (SADD). Mother and child participants consisted of three groups: 96 children (aged 4-15 years) with separation anxiety disorder, 49 children with "other" anxiety disorders, and 43 healthy controls. The SADD assesses the frequency of anxiety-provoking and non-anxiety-provoking separations, along with associated parental anxiety, thoughts, child behaviors, and cor- responding parental reactions. The SADD demonstrated acceptable compliance and convergent validity with hypothesized measures. Substantial improvement in the predic- tion of diagnostic group membership was shown when SADD items assessing child symptoms were added to information gathered from a separation anxiety symptom questionnaire.