Measurement invariance of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory

    Authors

    B. E. Bunnell; D. L. Joseph;D. C. Beidel

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Anxiety Disord.

    Keywords

    Social phobia; Anxiety; Measurement equivalence; Invariance; ITEM RESPONSE THEORY; PSYCHIATRIC-DISORDERS; CONCURRENT VALIDITY; GENERAL-POPULATION; GENDER-DIFFERENCES; COMMUNITY SAMPLE; YOUNG-ADULTS; FIT INDEXES; PREVALENCE; COMORBIDITY; Psychology, Clinical; Psychiatry

    Abstract

    The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) is a commonly used self-report measure asocial phobia that has demonstrated adequate reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and criterion-related validity. However, research has yet to address whether this measure functions equivalently in (a) individuals with and without a diagnosis of social phobia and (b) males and females. Evaluating measurement equivalence/invariance is necessary in order to determine that the construct of social anxiety is interpreted similarly across these populations. The results of the current investigation, using a series of nested factorial models proposed by Vandenberg and Lance (2000), provide evidence for strong equivalence across 420 individuals with and without diagnoses of social phobia and across male and female samples. Accordingly, these results provide psychometric justification for comparison of SPAI scores across the symptom continuum and sexes. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Anxiety Disorders

    Volume

    27

    Issue/Number

    1

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    84

    Last Page

    91

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000315430700010

    ISSN

    0887-6185

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