Reliability and validity of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for adolescents.

Abstract

Although social anxiety is known to be common among adolescents, there are no self-report measures with demonstrated reliability and validity for this population. The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) is a measure of social anxiety developed for adults. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability and validity of the SPAI for adolescents. The sample consisted of 223 adolescents ages 12 to 18 from both clinical and community sources. Confirmatory factor analysis established the validity of the 2 separate factors of Social Phobia and Agoraphobia. Reliability estimates by Cronbach alpha were acceptable for the SPAI subscales and total. The SPAI demonstrated good construct validity, showing statistically significant relationships with independent measures of social phobia and other anxiety variables. The results demonstrate that the SPAI is a reliable and valid measure of social phobia for adolescents. Social phobia is a common and important psychiatric disorder with substantial comorbidity, including other psychiatric disorders, increased suicidal ideation, and financial dependency (Schneier, Johnson, Hornig, Liebowitz, & Weissman, 1992). Studies have found that social phobia most often begins in adolescence (Thyer, Parrish, Nesse, & Cameron, 1985). Data from the National Institute of Mental Health Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program, for example, show that the mean age of onset of social phobia is 15.5 years (Schneier et al., 1992). A growing body of research suggests that adolescent social phobia is an important psychiatric disorder (Clark, Smith, Neighbors, Skerlec, & Randall, 1994), and that it may have deleterious consequences in adolescents, including increased alcohol abuse (Clark & Jacob, 1992; Clark S Silverman & Nelles, 1988). However, social anxiety is also common in normal adolescents (Bell-Dolan, Last, & Strauss, 1990), and diagnostic systems do not capture the range and severity of social anxiety symptoms. Interview measures are labor intensive and may not be feasible for some research. Self-report measures are therefore needed to determine the presence and severity of social phobia. At present, there are no generally accepted measures of social