Tripartite dimensions of emotion in a child clinical sample: Measurement strategies and implications for clinical utility

Several measurement strategies to assess the tripartite model of emotion in child and adolescent samples, have been developed. However, no studies have comparatively examined the most suitable strategies in clinical samples of children and adolescents. This study involved the evaluation of 2 distinct measures of tripartite constructs relative to anxiety and depression criterion variables in a clinical sample of 226 children in Grades 1 through 12. Results indicated that the measures performed similarly overall, but some differences were pronounced enough to suggest that the measures indexed slightly different aspects of the same constructs. These differences appear consistent with the scale design of each instrument. Implications for measurement of these constructs in future research are highlighted.