Situational factors influencing social anxiety in treatment-seeking adults who stutter: An exploratory factor analysis

Purpose: Adults who stutter (AWS) often show high levels of social anxiety. Stuttering is a speech disorder, making the latent factors influencing social anxiety potentially different from those in individuals with a social anxiety disorder (SAD) or general populations. This study aims to examine the situational factors influencing social anxiety in AWS.Methods: We analyzed data of 351 AWS using the fear/anxiety scale in the Japanese self-report version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS). We conducted exploratory factor analysis and investigated subscale scores.Results: We extracted five factors: (i) eating, drinking, and party, (ii) telephone, (iii) observation or non-speech, (iv) interaction with strangers, and (v) public speaking. The factor for telephone was newly extracted, and anxiety in telephone situations was poorly explained by the total score of fear/anxiety of the LSAS. On the other hand, the other four factors are similar to those previously extracted in individuals with SAD and general populations, and more than 60% of the variance of the subscale constructs was explained by the total score. Preliminary comparisons revealed that AWS had saliently higher anxiety in telephone situations and lower anxiety in observation or non-speech situations than individuals with anxiety disorders and Japanese university students.Conclusions: The factor for telephone was uniquely extracted in AWS, and the severity of anxiety in telephone situations was not explained well by the overall severity of social anxiety as a whole. Telephone situations have specific impacts on social anxiety in AWS.