Children’s Fear Scale
The Children’s Fear Scale was adapted from the Faces Anxiety Scale (McKinley, Coote, & Stein-Parbury, 2003) to measure fear in children undergoing painful medical procedures. The initial validation study (McMurtry, Noel, Chambers, & McGrath, 2011) with children undergoing venipuncture demonstrated construct validity (through high concurrent validity with another measure of child fear and moderate discriminant validity with child coping behaviour) as well as test-retest and interrater reliability.
*Please note that in other, earlier publications by our team, the scale was referred to as the Faces Anxiety Scale for Children.
Download the CFS
Please click the ‘Download’ button below to get the full-size PDF version of the CFS, with instructions (English).
Permission For Use
No permission is required for clinical and research use of the CFS.
References
Initial Validation Study: McMurtry, C.M., Noel, M., Chambers, C.T., McGrath, P.J. (2011). Children’s fear during procedural pain: Preliminary investigation of the Children’s Fear Scale. Health Psychology, Advanced Access Online. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024817
Original Faces Anxiety Scale: McKinley, S., Coote, K., & Stein-Parbury, J. S. (2003). Development and testing of a faces scale for the assessment of anxiety in critically ill patients. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 41, 73-79. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2003.02508.x