Keywords

Social anxiety disorder, adolescents, daily functioning, alcohol use, expectancies, sleep, social skill

Abstract

Although social anxiety disorder is most often diagnosed during adolescence, few investigations have examined the clinical presentation of this disorder exclusively in adolescents. Prior studies have demonstrated that some clinical features of SAD in adolescents are unique relative to younger children with the condition. Furthermore, the extant literature on daily functional impairment in this population is limited. In this investigation, multiple areas of functioning were examined in adolescents with SAD (n = 16) and normal control adolescents (n = 14): specific social skills, subjective distress and physiological reactivity during one speech performance task and one social interaction task; alcohol use and expectancies; subjective and objective quality of sleep; and daily distressing social activities. No differences were observed in sleep actigraphy, self-reported sleep difficulties, alcohol use, or alcohol expectancies. Adolescents with SAD reported greater distress during both analogue tasks relative to NC adolescents. During the speech task, adolescents with SAD exhibited significantly greater speech latency (4.42 seconds vs. 1.75 seconds) and spoke significantly less (83.09 seconds vs. 167.75 seconds) than NC adolescents. Additionally, SAD participants manifested greater skin conductance during the speech task. During the social interaction, adolescents with SAD asked significantly fewer questions (2.20 vs. 7.07) and required significantly more confederate prompts (2.33 vs. 1.14) to stimulate interaction. Finally, adolescents with SAD reported more frequent anxiety-provoking situations in their daily lives and greater avoidance of these situations, including answering questions in class, assertive communication, and interacting with a group. iv The findings are discussed with respect to the current understanding of alcohol use, quality of sleep, and social functioning in adolescents with SAD.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2013

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Beidel, Deborah

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Psychology Clinical

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0004891

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0004891

Language

English

Release Date

August 2018

Length of Campus-only Access

5 years

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences, Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

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