ИСТИНА

Research objectives. The Russian health psychology still does not have tools for children’s health anxiety studying, so it is necessary to identify methods aimed at assessing the presence/absence and severity of health anxiety in children. We made an attempt to adapt the "Short Health Anxiety Inventory" (Salkovskis, 2002) to a sample of children who do not have serious physical abnormalities in their health. Methods. 193 respondents (average age-12.5; 117 females). The "Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI)" was used for adaptation. We used the "Factor C" scale of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF, children's version) and the emotional scale of the questionnaire "Attitude to health" (Berezovskaya, 2005) for studying the external validity of the adapted method. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger, 2002) and the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI; Eysenck, 1963) (neuroticism scale) were used to assess structural validity. Results. The Russian version of the questionnaire showed internal consistency (Cronbach's α coefficient-0.835), retest reliability, discriminability, external and structural validity. Correlations between the scales showed the following values: 0.943 (p≤0.01) – for the General scale, 0.392 (p≤0.01) – for the scale "Alertness to bodily sensations", 0.675 (p≤0.01) – for the scale "Fear of negative consequences". The original three-component structure of the questionnaire was confirmed. Discussion. Among the advantages of the adapted questionnaire, we note its brevity, clearness, ease of use for both respondents and specialists, as well as ease of processing and the results interpretation. Psychometric analysis showed its validity and suitability for studying the measured construct in children. We found that this questionnaire has a relative stability of results over time, internal consistency, a high level of discriminability, and thus meets its requirements for studying health anxiety in children. The results indicate that this questionnaire can be used to study children's health anxiety due to its psychometric characteristics, simplicity and ease of use.