Dejan Stevanovic*1, Bojan Lalic2, Jelena Batinic2, Rade Damjanovic3, Vladimir Jovic1
*stevanovic.dejan79@gmail.com
1Clinic for Neurology and Psychiatry for Children and Youth, Belgrade, Serbia
2University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
3Faculty of Education, Sombor, Serbia
Abstract
The aim of this study was to develop the Serbian version of the Metacognitions Questionnaire for Children (MCQ-C). Data were collected from a sample of 473 children and adolescents aged 9-18. The participants also completed the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS). Exploratory-confirmatory factor analysis approach resulted in a version of 13 items distributed over three factors. The model was fully invariant for boys vs. girls and children vs. adolescents, but not for clinical vs. non-clinical youth. All correlations between the MCQ-C and anxiety symptoms were in positive direction as predicted (the highest with obsessive-compulsive symptoms), but not all correlations were clinically relevant, while the magnitude of correlations among non-referred children and adolescents was higher than among those with psychopathology. The Serbian version of the MCQ-C may not be able to distinguish youth with particular internalizing symptoms, but only youth with depression from those with externalizing disorders.
Keywords: anxiety, depression, psychopathology, metacognitive beliefs
Published online: 2016/09/01
Published print: 2016/09/01
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