Adaptation and Factor Structure of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale on Chilean Children and Adolescents

Abstract The high prevalence of mental disorders related to anxiety and depressive mood during childhood and adolescence requires a constant screening of the levels of such variables. For that purpose, instruments that are valid, reliable and easy to administrate are needed. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) represents an instrument with those characteristics. The aim of this study was to adapt the HADS, in a representative sample (between 8 and 16 years old) of Chilean children and adolescents. The study was conducted in four stages: cognitive interviews (N=10), confirmatory factor analysis (N=467), test-retest with two weeks (n=126) and one-month (n=227) intervals. The results indicated that the adapted HADS, with an extension of 12 items, would have a structure of two factors (anxiety and depressive mood), adequate reliability for the anxiety subscale (n = .75), but not for depression (n = .65), an absence of a significant correlation between factors, and differences according to gender and type of school. It is concluded that the adapted HADS is reliable for its use with Chilean adolescents. This study supports the two-factor structure of anxiety-depression. However, the structure of three factors also reached significant adjustment coefficients.