Brief Report: Factor Structure of the Childhood Illness Attitude Scales (CIAS)
1 Department of Psychology, University of Regina and 2 Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan
This paper is based on data collected as part of the master’s thesis of the first author, conducted under the primary supervision of the second author. Kristi D. Wright is now in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Dalhousie University. The reported findings have not been previously published.
All correspondence should be sent to Gordon J. G. Asmundson, Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4S 0A2. E-mail: gordon.asmundson{at}uregina.ca.
Objective To examine the factor structure of the Childhood Illness Attitude Scales (CIAS). The CIAS is a 35-item self-report measure based on the Illness Attitudes Scales, designed for use with school-age children. The CIAS measures fears, beliefs, and attitudes associated with health anxiety and abnormal illness behavior in childhood. Methods CIAS item responses for 201 school-age children were subjected to principal-components analysis with oblique rotation. Results The CIAS was best conceptualized as comprising four factors: fears, help seeking, treatment experience, and symptom effects. Further factor analysis supported the notion that the CIAS can also be conceptualized as having a hierarchical structure, with four lower-order factors loading onto a single higher-order factor of health anxiety. Conclusions Results suggest that the CIAS possesses good psychometric properties, including factorial validity and internal consistency, and appears to be a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring children’s health anxiety.
Key words: health anxiety; school-age children; factor analysis.