A Psychometric Evaluation of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents in an Educational Setting

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-528
Author(s):  
Cliodhna E. M. O’Connor ◽  
Amanda Fitzgerald

Social anxiety in adolescents oftentimes goes undetected because of the internalized nature of the disorder as well as adolescents’ reluctance to discuss their mental health. A reliable and valid self-report measure for assessing symptoms of social anxiety in adolescents for use in an educational setting is particularly important because of the burden that social anxiety can have in educational settings. This study aimed to test the previously proposed two-factor structure of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SASA), Apprehension and Fear of Negative Evaluation and Tension and Inhibition in Social Contact, in an adolescent sample ( n = 215; 12-18 years; 90 female) in Ireland using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). CFA validated the two-factor structure of the SASA previously found in Slovenian- and Spanish-speaking samples. Correlations with other measures of social anxiety also showed good validity for the SASA.

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-351
Author(s):  
Amanda Fitzgerald ◽  
Caroline Rawdon ◽  
Claire O’Rourke ◽  
Barbara Dooley

Abstract. The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C) is a 26-item, empirically derived, self-report measure, which assesses symptoms of social phobia based on DSM-IV criteria. Previous studies have examined the factor structure of the SPAI-C and suggested three-, four-, and five-factor models. However, differences in the underlying factor structures reported may be due to misuse of analytic methods or use of mixed samples, rather than meaningful differences in the underlying presentation of social anxiety. We tested all previously published factor structures in an Irish community-based adolescent sample. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and DSM-5 criteria supported the five-factor structure proposed by Aune, Stiles, and Svarva (2008) including Assertiveness, Physical/Cognitive Symptoms, Public Performance, Social Encounters, and Avoidance factors. Findings suggest that the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C) is relevant to DSM-5 criteria for social anxiety disorder (SAD) and is appropriate for use with older adolescents outside of the USA.


Author(s):  
Eleanor Leigh ◽  
David M. Clark

Abstract. The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (LSAS-CA) is a valid and reliable clinician-administered measure of social anxiety symptoms in young people. It has been adapted for self-report completion, and although the psychometric properties of this version of the scale have been examined in Spanish, Hebrew, and French language versions, this has not yet been done for the English language version. In the present study, we examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the self-report version of the scale (LSAS-CA-SR) in a sample of UK adolescents recruited from schools. The factor structure of the scale was determined in our sample of N = 829; a four-factor structure, with interaction anxiety, interaction avoidance, performance anxiety, and performance-avoidance subscales, provided the best fit to the data. Measurement invariance of the scale was demonstrated across age and gender. Psychometric properties of the scale were sound, with good internal consistency (.88–.97), acceptable test-retest reliability (.45–.57), and evidence for convergent and divergent validity.


Assessment ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillary K. Schiltz ◽  
Brooke E. Magnus ◽  
Alana J. McVey ◽  
Angela D. Haendel ◽  
Bridget K. Dolan ◽  
...  

Social anxiety is common among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An ongoing challenge for both research and clinical practice in ASD is the assessment of anxious symptomatology. Despite its widespread use in samples of youth with ASD, the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) has not received psychometric evaluation within this population; thus, the validity of its use in research and clinical practice for ASD remains unclear. The present study conducted a psychometric analysis of caregiver and adolescent SAS-A forms in a sample of adolescents with ASD ( N = 197). Results revealed (1) poor caregiver–adolescent item-level agreement, (2) a two-factor structure, (3) lack of measurement invariance between reporters, and (4) modest evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. Overall, findings suggest that this measure demonstrates reasonable psychometric properties in an ASD sample. Lack of measurement invariance, however, calls for careful interpretation of research involving the SAS-A in ASD samples, particularly when the primary goal is to compare adolescent and caregiver reports. The implications of these findings for future research and clinical practice are discussed.


2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine E. Gould ◽  
Caroline Ciliberti ◽  
Barry A. Edelstein ◽  
Merideth Smith ◽  
Lindsay A. Gerolimatos

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orestis Zavlis ◽  
Myles Jones

Substantial overlap exists between schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders, with part of that overlap hypothesised to be due to comorbid social anxiety. The current paper investigates the interactions and factor structure of these disorders at a personality trait level, through the lens of a network model. The items of the Autism Quotient (AQ), Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire Brief-Revised (SPQ-BR), and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (L-SAS) were combined and completed by 345 members of the general adult population. An Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA) on the AQ-SPQ-BR combined inventory revealed two communities (factors), which reflected the general autism and schizotypal phenotypes. An additional EGA on all inventories validated the AQ-SPQ-BR factor structure and revealed another community, Social Anxiety (L-SAS). A Network Analysis (NA) on all inventories revealed several moderately central subscales, which collectively reflected the social-interpersonal impairments of the three disorders. The current results suggest that a combination of recent network- and traditional factor-analytic techniques may present a fruitful approach to understanding the underlying structure as well as relation of different psychopathologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis-Joaquin Garcia-Lopez ◽  
Lourdes Espinosa-Fernandez ◽  
Jose-Antonio Muela-Martinez ◽  
Jose Antonio Piqueras

Despite the availability of efficacious treatment and screening protocols, social anxiety disorder (SAD) in adolescents is considerably under-detected and undertreated. Our main study objective was to examine a brief, valid, and reliable social anxiety measure already tested to serve as self-report child measure but administered via Internet aimed at listening to the ability of his or her parent to identify social anxiety symptomatology in his or her child. This parent version could be used as a complementary measure to avoid his or her overestimation of children of social anxiety symptomatology using traditional self-reported measures. We examined the psychometric properties of brief and valid social anxiety measure in their parent format and administered via the Internet. The sample included 179 parents/legal guardians of adolescents (67% girls) with a clinical diagnosis of SAD (mean age: 14.27; SD = 1.33). Findings revealed good factor structure, internal consistency, and construct validity. Data support a single, strength-based factor on the SPAIB-P, being structure largely invariant across age and gender. The limited number of adolescents with a performance-only specifier prevented examining the utility of scale to screen for this recently established specifier. It is crucial to evaluate if these results generalize to different cultures and community samples. The findings suggest that the SPAIB-P evidences performance comparable with child-reported measure. Parents can be reliable reports of the social anxiety symptomatology of the adolescent. The SPAIB-P may be useful for identifying clinically disturbed socially anxious adolescents.


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