A new inventory to assess childhood social anxiety and phobia: The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children.

Abstract

The development, reliability, and validity of a new instrument, the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C), is described. The results indicate that the SPAI-C has high test-retest reliability and internal consistency. In addition, an assessment of concurrent and external validity indicates statistically significant correlations with commonly used self-report measures of general anxiety and fears and parental reports of children's anxiety and social competence. The results of a factor analysis indicate that the scale consists of three factors: Assertiveness/ General Conversation, Traditional Social Encounters, and Public Performance. Finally, scores on the SPAI-C successfully differentiate socially anxious and non-socially-anxious children. The instrument appears to be a reliable and valid measure for childhood social anxiety and fear and may prove useful for improving clinical assessment and documenting treatment outcome. Social phobia is a marked and persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Among children, epidemiological data suggest that the prevalence rate is between 1% and 2% (Anderson, Williams, McGee, & Silva, 1987; Kashani & Orvaschel, 1990). On the basis of adult retrospective reports, the average age of onset is midadolescenc e. Among child and adolescent samples, Strauss and Last (1993) reported a mean age of onset of 12.3 years, and children as young as 8 years of age have been diagnosed with this disorder (Beidel & Turner, 1988). Therefore, although some individuals will not develop social phobia until midadolescence or later, many younger children suffer from the condition. During the past decade, understanding of the clinical manifestations of social phobia in adult populations has increased dramatically. However, empirical data on the course and treatment of social phobia in children are limited. In one of the few extant studies, Beidel (1991) reported that children with social phobia had higher trait anxiety scores, had significantly poorer perceptions of their cognitive and academic abilities, and reported significantly more anxiety when taking an age-appropriate vocabulary test or reading aloud in front of a small audience. In addition to its clinical correlates, the detrimental effects of childhood social phobia are beginning to emerge. For example, some school refusers do so because of social fears (Last, Hersen, Kazdin, Orvaschel, & Perrin, 1991). Clark (1993) re