RCADS Scoring · Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale

The RCADS is a 47-item self-report measure of anxiety and depression symptoms in youth ages 8 to 18, organised into six DSM-aligned subscales.

About the RCADS

The Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale was developed by Bruce Chorpita and colleagues, who revised the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale so that its items would map onto dimensions of several DSM anxiety disorders and major depression. The result is a single self-report measure that screens across the most common internalizing concerns in childhood and adolescence.

It is designed for young people roughly ages 8 to 18, with a matching parent-report version (RCADS-P) and shorter forms (such as the 25-item RCADS-25) for briefer screening or repeated monitoring. The RCADS, its norms, and its scoring spreadsheets are distributed by UCLA Child FIRST under a limited licence (free for individual clinical and educational use) and are widely used in schools, paediatric clinics, and measurement-based care.

What the RCADS measures

The RCADS covers six symptom domains:

• Separation Anxiety Disorder
• Social Phobia
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Major Depressive Disorder

The five anxiety subscales combine into a Total Anxiety score, and all six combine into a Total Anxiety and Depression score, giving both a broad internalizing picture and a symptom-specific profile.

How to administer the RCADS

The RCADS takes about 10–15 minutes to complete and is self-administered, with the parent-report RCADS-P collected in parallel when possible. Non-clinical staff can administer the form, but scoring requires the norm-based spreadsheet and a licensed clinician interprets the T-score profile alongside history and functional impact. The short forms suit repeated session-to-session monitoring.

RCADS scoring and interpretation

How to Score the RCADS

Each of the 47 items is rated 0 (Never), 1 (Sometimes), 2 (Often), or 3 (Always). Raw subscale sums are then converted to age- and gender-standardized T-scores using the RCADS norms, because the symptom level expected of, say, a 9-year-old differs from that of a 16-year-old. Scoring is normally done with the official RCADS scoring spreadsheet, which applies the correct norm table automatically. Higher T-scores indicate more symptoms relative to same-age, same-gender peers.

RCADS T-Score Bands

These T-score thresholds follow the RCADS scoring guidance (Chorpita). They are applied per subscale, so a young person can fall in the clinical range on one subscale while staying within the normal range on others. A clinical-range T-score is a positive screen that warrants a full clinical evaluation; it is a screening result, not a clinical conclusion.

Psychometric properties

The RCADS six-factor structure has been confirmed across many samples and languages, with good-to-excellent internal consistency for the total and subscale scores and supportive convergent and known-groups validity, including community normative data for 8- to 17-year-olds (Chorpita et al., 2000; Grothus et al., 2023). Subscale scores correlate with corresponding diagnostic groups, supporting their use as targeted screens.

Limitations

• Screening, not a clinical conclusion. A clinical-range T-score indicates symptoms consistent with an anxiety or depressive disorder and warrants full evaluation.
• Norm-dependent scoring. T-scores rely on the reference norms; using local or version-matched norms matters for accuracy.
• Length and informant. At 47 items it is longer than single-domain screens; pair self- and parent-report and interpret divergence, especially in younger children.

For a briefer youth anxiety screen, consider the SCARED; for depression alone, the MFQ; for adults, the GAD-7 and PHQ-9.

Billing the RCADS (CPT 96127)

RCADS administration qualifies for reimbursement under CPT code 96127 (brief emotional/behavioural assessment) when it is scored and documented with clinical interpretation. Medicare's Medically Unlikely Edit caps 96127 at 4 units per date of service; commercial payer limits vary, so confirm your contract. Self-report and parent-report forms completed in the same encounter may each be billed as a separate unit.