Abstract
Although social phobia is one of the most common mental disorders in adolescents, there are few reliable and valid assessment instruments for this age group. This study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of a brief version of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI; Turner, Beidel, Dancu, & Stanley, 1989) in a sample of adolescents. Although the original 45-item SPAI has excellent psychometric properties, its utility is limited by its length. We developed and piloted a brief, 16-item version of the SPAI that has good psychometric properties, assesses cognitive, behavioral, and somatic symptoms, consistent with the original scale, which may be particularly useful as a screening measure. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.
References
2001). The developmental and clinical impact of social anxiety and social phobia in children and adolescents. In , From social anxiety to social phobia (pp. 162–178). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
(1998). Comorbidity of test anxiety and other anxiety disorders in children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 16, 275–287.
(1993). Assessing reliability and clinically significant change in social phobia: Validity of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory. Behavior Research and Therapy, 31, 331–337.
(1999). Psychopathology of childhood social phobia. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 38, 643–650.
(1999). Validity of two questionnaires to assess social fears: The Dutch Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory and the Blushing, Trembling and Sweating Questionnaire. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 21, 51–66.
(1994). Reliability and validity of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for adolescents. Psychological Assessment, 6, 135–140.
(2000). Psychometric properties of the Social Phobia Inventory. British Journal of Psychiatry, 176, 379–86.
(1998). A comparison of social phobia outcome measures in cognitive-behavioral group therapy. Behavior Modification, 22, 285–297.
(1951). Coefficient α and the internal consistency of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297–334.
(1999). Frequency and comorbidity of social phobia and social fears in adolescents. Behavior Research and Therapy, 37, 831–843.
(2002). Course and outcome of anxiety disorders in adolescents. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 16, 67–81.
(2005). Size and burden of social phobia. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 15, 453–462.
(2008). Exploring the relevance of gender and age differences to the assessment of social fears in adolescence. Social Behavior and Personality, 36, 385–390.
(2005). A pilot study on sensitivity of outcome measures for treatments of generalized social phobia in adolescents. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 5, 385–392.
(2001). Psychometric properties of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory, the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents, the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale and the Social Avoidance and Distress scale in an adolescent Spanish sample. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 23, 51–59.
(2003). Social anxiety disorder: Revision of assessment measures for Spanish-speaking population. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 35, 151–160.
E. (in press ). Social anxiety disorder in childhood and adolescents: Current trends, advances, and future directions. Psicologia Conductual [Behavioral Psychology].1981). Distribution theory for Glass’s estimator of effect size and related estimators. Journal of Educational Statistics, 6, 107–128.
(1991). Concurrent validity of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 4, 39–51.
(2000). A new view of statistics. Internet Society for Sport Science. Retrieved on April 31, 2006, from www.sportsci.org/resource/stats
(2005). Interpersonal differences in adolescence. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 21, 11–22.
(1993). LISREL 8. User’s reference guide. Chicago: Scientific Software.
(1998). Social anxiety among adolescents: Linkages with peer relations and friendships. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 26, 83–94.
(2003). The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents: An initial psychometric investigation. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 1076–1084.
(1998). Development and validation of measures of social phobia scrutiny fear and social interaction anxiety. Behavior Research and Therapy, 36, 455–470.
(2004). Relationships among social anxiety measures and their invariance: A confirmatory factor analysis. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 20, 172–179.
(2002). A pilot study on normative data for two social anxiety measures: The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory and the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 2, 467–476.
(1999). The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory: Reliability and validity in an adolescent Spanish population. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 21, 67–78.
(2005). Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A): Psychometric properties in a Spanish-speaking population. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 5, 85–97.
(2000). Social anxiety in Slovene adolescents: Psychometric properties of a new measure, age differences and relations with self-consciousness and perceived incompetence. European Review of Applied Psychology, 50, 249–258.
(2000). TestGraph: A program for the graphical analysis of multiple choice test and questionnaire data (unpublished manual). Montreal, Canada: McGill University.
(1998). Assessment of contemporary social phobia verbal report instruments. Behavior Research and Therapy, 36, 983–994.
(2007). Development of an abbreviated Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) using item response theory: The SPAI-23. Psychological Assessment, 19, 133–145.
(1998). Factor structure of the Social Interaction Anxiety scale and the Social Phobia scale. Behavior Research and Therapy, 36, 443–453.
(1989). An empirically derived inventory to measure social fears and anxiety: The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 1, 35–40.
(1999). Social fears and social phobia in a community sample of adolescents and young adults: Prevalence, risk factors and co-morbidity. Psychological Medicine, 29, 309–323.
(