Two dimensions of social anxiety disorder: a pilot study of the Questionnaire for Social Anxiety and Social Competence Deficits for Adolescents (original) (raw)

Brief measures to screen for social anxiety in adolescents

Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics , 2015

Objective: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) in adolescents is considerably under-detected and undertreated despite the availability of efficacious treatments. Our main study objective was to examine brief, valid, and reliable screening measures for adolescent social anxiety, and to then to conduct diagnostic interviews to evaluate the measures’ ability to identify adolescents with SAD. Methods: We examined seven brief and valid social anxiety measures and compared their diagnostic accuracy with diagnoses established by a semi-structured interview. The sample included 421 Spanish adolescents with and 613 without a clinical diagnosis of SAD. Results: Data revealed that short social anxiety measures are accurate in detecting Spanish-speaking socially anxious adolescents in Spain. All questionnaires showed good or excellent discriminating ability, with the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) and the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory-Brief (SPAI-B) having the best sensitivity and specificity values, respectively. Excellent areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves were found for most measures, except for the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (LSAS-CA) and the Mini-Social Phobia Inventory (MINI-SPIN), which had good discriminatory ability. There was little statistical difference in the ability of the brief social anxiety measures to identify cases accurately, although the SPAI-B cut-off score yielded the best balance between sensitivity and specificity and the highest Youden Index. Conclusions: Overall, results suggest that brief measures for social anxiety symptoms can be effective in detecting SAD in Spanish-speaking adolescents. Depending on the purpose of the study, SAS-A may be especially useful for reducing false negatives and the SPAI-B for false positives.

Cross validation of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents in a high school sample

Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 2002

Social anxiety disorder in adolescents is increasingly recognized as a common condition that may precede onset of other mental health problems. However, few measures are currently available to screen for adolescent social anxiety, and little is known about their psychometric characteristics in school-based samples. To this end, the present study was undertaken as a psychometric cross validation of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A). Exploratory and Con®rmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) supported the original 3-factor structure of the SAS-A but retained fewer items than in the original scale. The revised scales demonstrated good internal consistency as well as criterion and concurrent validity. Despite including fewer items, psychometric characteristics of the revised scales were equivalent to or stronger than those reported in previous studies of the measure. As such, the present study provides initial support for the utility of the revised SAS-A as a measure of social anxiety in adolescent school samples. #

An examination of the MASC social anxiety scalein a non-referred sample of adolescents

Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 2009

Social phobia is prevalent during adolescence and is associated with negative outcomes. Two selfreport instruments are empirically-validated to specifically assess social phobia symptomatology in youth: the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children and the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents. The Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children is a broad-band measure of anxiety containing a scale assessing the social phobia construct. The present study investigated the MASC Social Anxiety Scale in relation to other well-established measures of social phobia and depression in a non-referred sample of adolescents. Results support the convergent validity of the MASC Social Anxiety Scale and provide some support for its discriminant validity, suggesting its utility in the initial assessment of social phobia. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROCs) calculated the sensitivity and specificity of the MASC Social Anxiety Scale. Binary logistic regression analyses determined the predictive utility of the MASC Social Anxiety Scale. Implications for assessment are discussed.

Social Anxiety in Adolescents: Prevalance and Morbidity

Pakistan Armed Forces Medical Journal, 2019

Objective: To explore the prevalence of “social anxiety” among adolescent student of Pakistani students. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Psychology, University of Gujrat, from 10th Oct 2017 to 30th Mar 2018. Methodology: The 716 adolescent students (344 male & 372 females) were assessed through Pakistani version of the scale initially developed by La Greca and Lopez in 1989 to measure social anxiety titled “Social Anxiety Scale– Adolescents”. Results: There was high prevalence of anxiety in adolescents as 22.5% of sample scored high on the SAS-A. No marked gender differences were observed on variable of interest. However, when analyzed for morbidity of social anxiety across early, middle and late adolescent groups it was observed that relatively less number of students in late adolescents scored high as 21.16% on social anxiety as compared to early 21.43% and middleadolescents 25.5%. Among high scorers in middle adolescents there was t...

Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) Short Form

Assessment, 2017

In this study, we examined the longitudinal measurement invariance of a 12-item short version of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) in two 4-year longitudinal community samples ( Nsample 1 = 815, Mage T1 = 13.38 years; Nsample 2 = 551, Mage T1 = 14.82 years). Using confirmatory factor analyses, we found strict longitudinal measurement invariance for the three-factor structure of the SAS-A across adolescence, across samples, and across gender. Some developmental changes in social anxiety were found from early to mid-adolescence, as well as gender differences across adolescence. These findings suggest that the short version of the SAS-A is a developmentally appropriate instrument that can be used effectively to examine adolescent social anxiety development.

The social anxiety spectrum

Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 2002

s Abstract The aim of this paper is to provide the prevalence rates of mild, moderate and severe symptoms of social anxiety in a sample of high school students and to analyze gender differences and associated impairment levels within these three levels of severity. Five hundred and twenty students were assessed with the Social Anxiety Spectrum Self-Report (SHY-SR), a questionnaire that explores social anxiety spectrum. By applying two cut-off scores determined on a separate sample by using ROC analysis, the large majority (73.3 %) of subjects were classified as low scorers, 9 % as medium scorers and 17.7 % as high scorers. Fears related to social situations were reported both by high and medium scorers. Functional impairment defined by avoidance and school difficulties was more common among high scorers, but it was also reported to a significant extent by medium scorers. Compared to low and medium scorers, high scorers showed a higher F/M ratio (about 4:1) and a more homogeneous symptomatological profile in the two genders. In conclusion, our report confirms, in line with the literature, that even moderate levels of social anxiety are associated with significant functional impairment and distress for the individuals.

Brief Form of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI-B) for Adolescents

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, ) 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.