Current understanding of transdiagnostic and specific correlates associated with these symptoms in children and adolescents remains limited, and more stringent tests of specificity are needed to understand these associations. Unique specificity analyses provide a stringent test of specificity, particularly for highly correlated symptoms like anxiety and depression. For unique effects, a correlate must predict one set of symptoms after controlling for the second type of symptoms (e.g., predicting anxiety symptoms when controlling for depressive symptoms and vice versa; Caron et al. 2006). To further test for specificity, using methods described by Cohen and Cohen (1983) and utilized by Mesman and Koot (2000), the comparison of part correlations between a correlate and symptoms of anxiety and depression provides an additional criterion for specificity.
