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. 2024 Jan 19;12(1):42.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-01525-y.

A contribution to the French validation of the clinical anxiety scale amongst health care workers in Switzerland

Yana Apostolova  1 , Elisabeth Stamm  2 , Francesco Cilla  3 , Anne-Véronique Durst  2 , Christophe Büla  2 , Patrizia D'Amelio  2
Affiliations

A contribution to the French validation of the clinical anxiety scale amongst health care workers in Switzerland

Yana Apostolova et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Background: Anxiety disorders are frequent but remain often underdiagnosed and undertreated. Hence, valid screening instruments are needed to enhance the diagnostic process. The Clinical Anxiety Scale (CAS) is a 25-item anxiety screening tool derived from the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A). However, this scale is not available in French. The General anxiety disorder - 7 (GAD-7) scale, which has been validated in French, is a 7-item instrument with good psychometric properties. This study contributes to the validation of an adapted French version of the CAS, using the GAD-7 as the reference.

Methods: A forward-backward English-French-English translation of the CAS was performed according to standard practice. The French versions of the CAS and GAD-7 were completed by 127 French speaking healthcare professionals. CAS internal consistency was assessed using Crohnbach's alpha, and test-retest reliability was tested after 15 days in a subsample of 30 subjects. Convergent validity with GAD-7 was assessed using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Test-retest reliability was explored using one-way random effects model to calculate the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results: French CAS showed excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.97), high convergent validity with GAD-7 (Pearson's R 0.81, p < 0.001), and very good test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.97, 95% CI 0.93-0.98).

Conclusion: The proposed French version of the CAS showed high reliability and validity that need to be further investigated in different populations.

Keywords: CAS; Clinical anxiety scale; French; Psychometric properties.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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