Background:

Anxiety and depression are the most common current mental health problems. Due to their comorbidity, there is a need for instruments that measure them simultaneously. Moreover, given that their prevalence varies by gender and age, it is important to examine the factorial invariance of such instruments. The present study aimed to analyze the dimensionality and factorial invariance of the Basque version of the Educational-Clinical Questionnaire: Anxiety and Depression (CECAD) as a function of gender and age, and to gather additional evidence of its validity.

Method:

The sample comprised 2131 participants (54.2 % female) between 7 and 24 years old (M= 13.2; SD= 3.52).

Results:

The CECAD was found to have a two-dimensional structure invariant to gender and age, with higher latent means for girls in both dimensions, and for those aged 14 and over in depression, but with small effect sizes. Both reliability and convergent validity values were good.

Conclusions:

The Basque version of the CECAD has good evidence of validity and reliability for assessing anxiety and depression in Basque-speaking children and adolescents.

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