Identifying sub-categories of social fears using an alternative factor analytic structure of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory.

Aims: This study evaluates an alternative factor structure of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (Turner et al., 1989), a widely used measure of social anxiety. Existing models ignore variance due to the different social contexts where social fears are expressed.

Method: Taking a different approach to scoring than previous studies, this investigation proposes a new model, which, in addition to 4-5 symptom dimensions, is able to capture the situations (strangers, authority figures, members of the opposite sex and people in general) that are of concern to the examinee. To test this model, all 96 items of the Social Phobia scale, rather than the average of the sub-items of its 23 questions were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis.

Results: The model shows good fit and is superior to models ignoring the "situation" factors, which show good predictive validity in respect to real life demographics.

Conclusion: Utilization of all single questions of the SPAI can capture a wider range of social fears related to social anxiety than using the average of the items, which has implications for the understanding and clinical assessment of social anxiety.