Parents' perception of children's fear: from FSSC-IT to FSSC-PP.

Silvia Salcuni,Elisa Delvecchio,Stefania Mannarini,Daniela Di Riso,Carla Dazzi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01199

Abstract

Studies involving parents' reports about children's fears and multiple informant comparisons are less extended than investigations on children's self-reporting fear schedules. Starting with the Italian version of FSSC-R, the FSSC-IT, the main aims of this study were to adapt a schedule for parents' perception of their children's fear: the FSSC-Parent Perception. Its psychometric properties were examined in a large sample of parents (N = 2970) of children aged 8–10 years. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial structures were examined and compared with the Italian children's ones. Mother vs. father, children's gender and school age group effects were analyzed. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a four correlated factors solution model (Fear of Danger and Death; Fear of Injury and Animals; Fear of Failure and Criticism; Fear of the unknown and Phobic aspects). Some effects related to child gender, age group, mother vs. father, were found. The FSSC-PP properties supported its use by parents to assess their children's fears. A qualitative analysis of the top 10 fears most endorsed by parents will be presented and compared with children's fears. Clinical implications about the quality of parent-child relationships where discussed, comparing mothers and fathers, and parents' perception about daughters' and sons' most endorsed fears.

Highlights

Normal fears can be considered as an adaptive response, since they motivate attempts to protect from a real or imagined treat (Fisher et al, 2006; Muris, 2007)
Step 2: a principal component analysis was performed with oblique rotation using the Promax method as well as orthogonal rotation with the Varimax method
The present study examined a factorial structure and the psychometric properties of the Fear Survey Schedule for Child

Summary

Introduction

Normal fears can be considered as an adaptive response, since they motivate attempts to protect from a real or imagined treat (Fisher et al, 2006; Muris, 2007). One of the most used tools to assess normative description of child fears is the Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC; Ollendick, 1983). This schedule and its revised forms (FSSC-II, FSSC-R; Gullone and King, 1997; Gullone et al, 2000; Burnham, 2005; Fisher et al, 2006; Serim-Yıldız and Erdur-Baker, 2013) show the most robust psychometric properties (Svensson and Ost, 1999; Bokhorst et al, 2008; Salcuni et al, 2009; Di Riso et al, 2010; Burkhardt et al, 2012).

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Results