Psychometric properties of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale in a large cross-cultural Spanish and Portuguese speaking sample.

Publisher: Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria Country of Publication: Brazil NLM ID: 100895975 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1809-452X (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 15164446 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Braz J Psychiatry Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: São Paulo, SP, Brasil : Associação Brasileira de Psiquiatria, [1999]-

Psychiatric Status Rating Scales*; Phobia, Social/*diagnosis; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Case-Control Studies ; Cultural Characteristics ; Female ; Humans ; Latin America ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Portugal ; Psychometrics ; Spain ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Young Adult

Objective: To examine the psychometric properties of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self Report (LSAS-SR) based on a large sample recruited from 16 Latin American countries, Spain, and Portugal.
Methods: Two groups of participants were included: a non-clinical sample involving 31,243 community subjects and a clinical sample comprising 529 patients with a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) were used in order to determine the psychometric properties of the LSAS-SR.
Results: EFA identified five factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00 explaining 50.78% of the cumulative variance. CFA and ESEM supported this 5-factor structure of the LSAS-SR. The factors included: 1) speaking in public; 2) eating/drinking in front of other people; 3) assertive behaviors; 4) working/writing while being observed; and 5) interactions with strangers. Other psychometric properties such as inter-factor correlations, invariance, reliability, and validity of the scale were also found.
Conclusion: Psychometric data support the internal consistency and convergent validity of the LSAS-SR. It seems to be a valid and reliable measure of global social anxiety for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, although when considering a multidimensional approach (factor-based assessment) it seems to be lacking some relevant social situations that are feared in those countries.

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Date Created: 20181018 Date Completed: 20190620 Latest Revision: 20191027

20240513

PMC6781681

10.1590/1516-4446-2018-0006

30328964