OBJECTIVE: To make a survey of the principal anxiety instruments available for children, when they appeared, the type of methods used, verifying which countries have the highest number of children anxiety instruments and also how is the Brazilian reality on this matter. METHODS: A systematic review on electronic databases _ Psychoinfo (1940 _ May 2002), Psyclit (1887 _ May 2002), Medline (1966 _ May 2002) e Eric (1966 _ May 2002). Information collected on personal communications and books chapters. The inclusion criterion utilized: studies realized with children, where the anxiety were evaluated with some psychometric instrument. The exclusion criterion: adolescents, adults and animal research articles, articles utilizing projective instruments or studies without any reference of assessment instruments. The indexed articles found in 2 or more databases were considered only once. RESULTS: This review pointed out 1911 studies used at least one assessment instrument to identify the presence of anxiety and 118 instruments were used for this purpose. Conclusions: There are a large number of children anxiety instruments available, however, in Brazil, the only one available in the market isn't updated and the modern ones are found only in clinic academic centers.
Anxiety disorders; Psychiatric status rating scales; Psychometrics; Psychological tests; Child; Review, academic
