Nighttime fears are highly prevalent in children and are linked to children’s distress and internalizing problems, especially childhood anxiety. Although its assessment may be critical, there is a lack of available standardized self-reports. This study aimed to describe the development and psychometric evaluation of the Nighttime Fears Scale (NFS), a new standardized self-report for assessing nighttime fears in school-aged children. The construction of the scale was based on prior relevant research and involvement of researchers and clinicians, experts in childhood anxiety, and fears. A total of 794 Spanish-speaking children (51.1 % girls) aged 8–12 years completed the NFS along with measures of anxiety, sleep problems, internalizing and externalizing problems, and positive behaviors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a four-factor structure of the NFS, consisting of 21 items measuring a range of potentially fear-provoking stimuli at nighttime. Strong internal consistency (alphas ranging from .87 to .94), adequate test-retest reliability, and evidence of convergent, divergent and incremental validity was found. This study provides initial support for the use of the NFS by clinicians and researchers, suggesting that it is a promising tool for a rapid and easily-administered assessment to identify the presence and intensity levels of a set of common children’s nighttime fears.

夜间恐惧在儿童中非常普遍，并且与儿童的困扰和内在问题（尤其是儿童期焦虑症）有关。尽管其评估可能很关键，但缺乏可用的标准化自我报告。这项研究旨在描述夜间恐惧量表（NFS）的发展和心理测评，该量表是一种新的标准化自我报告，用于评估学龄儿童的夜间恐惧。该量表的构建是基于先前的相关研究以及研究人员和临床医生，儿童焦虑症和恐惧的专家的参与。共有794名8至12岁的说西班牙语的儿童（占51.1％的女孩）完成了NFS以及焦虑，睡眠问题，内在和外在问题以及积极行为的测量。探索性和确定性因素分析支持NFS的四因素结构，该结构由21个项目组成，这些项目在夜间测量一系列可能引起恐惧的刺激。发现强大的内部一致性（alpha从0.87到0.94），足够的重测信度以及收敛，发散和递增有效性的证据。这项研究为临床医生和研究人员使用NFS提供了初步支持，这表明它是一种快速且易于管理的评估方法，可用于识别一组常见儿童夜间恐惧的存在和强度水平。并找到了收敛，发散和递增有效性的证据。这项研究为临床医生和研究人员使用NFS提供了初步支持，这表明它是一种快速且易于管理的评估方法，可用于识别一组常见儿童夜间恐惧的存在和强度水平。并找到了收敛性，发散性和增量有效性的证据。这项研究为临床医生和研究人员使用NFS提供了初步支持，这表明它是一种快速且易于管理的评估方法，可用于识别一组常见儿童夜间恐惧的存在和强度水平。