The Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN; Connor et al., 2000) is a self-report measure assessing symptoms of social anxiety. Currently, the SPIN is not available in French. We assessed the reliability and validity of a French version of the SPIN. Questionnaire packages that included the SPIN as well as another measure of social anxiety and measures of depression and obsessive compulsive symptoms were completed by 193 English speaking and 216 French speaking participants, each in their respective languages. To assess test-retest reliability, 38 English and 39 French participants completed the questionnaire package a second time after an approximately 5 week delay. The SPIN had excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability in both French and English. Additionally, the SPIN exhibited strong convergent and divergent validity. The results of this study will be discussed in terms of issues associated with the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders in English- and French-speaking populations.

Social anxiety is characterized by fear and avoidance of social situations in which embarrassment may occur (APA, 2000).

SPIN (Connor et al., 1999).17-item self-report measure of social anxiety.French translation by Charette and colleagues (2003).

76-item self-report measure.17-item subscale measures social or interpersonal anxiety.French translation by Gareau & O’Connor (1991).Used to establish convergent validity of the SPIN.

21-item self-report measuring symptoms of Depression.French translation by Beck, and colleagues (1998).Used to establish divergent validity of the SPIN.

39-item self-report measuring symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).French translation by Freeston and colleagues (1991).Used to establish divergent validity of the SPIN.

Fear Survey Schedule-III (FSS; Wolpe & Lang, 1969).

The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI; Beck, et al.,1996).

The Padua Inventory – Washington State University Revision (PIWSUR; Burns et al., 1996).

Prior to the development of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN; Connor et al., 1999), none of the available social anxiety measures assessed all three clinically important features of social anxiety; fear, avoidance, and physiological symptoms of anxiety.

Psychometric Validation of a French Translation of the Social Phobia Inventory in a French Canadian Population

Andrea R. Ashbaugh , Melissa Saxe , Allison J. Ouimet, Adam S. Radomsky , & Kieron P. O’Connor Department of Psychology Concordia University, Montreal, Centre de recherche Fernand-Séguin, l’Université de Montréal

Normative Data (SPIN):Table 1: Mean, minimum, and maximum scores on the SPIN

Reliability Analyses:Table 2: Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the SPIN

** p < .001

Convergent and Divergent Validity:Table 3: Correlations between the SPIN, the FSS , the BDI, and the PIWSUR

includes social items only** p < .001

Poster presented at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, November 2005

American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Washington DC: Author. Beck, A.T., Steer, R.A., & Brown, G. (1996). Beck Depression Inventory, second edition Manual. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Beck, A.T., Steer, R.A., & Brown, G. (1998). Inventaire de Dépression de Beck BDI-II) (2nd ED). Paris: Editions du Centre Psychologie Appliqué.Connor, K.M., Davidson, J.R.T., Churchill, L.E., Sherwood, A., Foa, E., & Weisler, R.H. (2000). Psychometric properties of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). British Journal of Psychiatry, 176, 379-386.Charette, J., Léveillé, C., O’Connor, K., Pélissier, M-C., & St-Jean-Trudel, E.S. (2003). SPIN – Version Française. Centre de Recherche Fernand-Séguin.Gareau, D., & O’Connor, K. (1991). FSS-III French version. Centre de Recherche Fernand-Séguin.Freeston, M.H., Ladouceur, R., Letarte, H., Rhéaume, J., Gagnon, F. & Thibodeau, N. (1999). Measurement of obsessive-compulsive symptoms with the Padua Inventory: Replication and extension. Unpublished Manuscript.Tabachnik, B.G., & Fidell, L.S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Wolpe J., & Lang, P.J. (1969). Fear Survey Schedule. San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Service.Vallerand, R.J. (1989). Vers une méthodologie de validation trans-culturelle dequestionnaires psychologique: Implications pour la recherché en langue Française. Psychologie Canadienne, 30, 662-680.

1 1

1

1, 2 2

2

The SPIN is currently unavailable in French.

Measures:

Participants:

Translation:

Undergraduate students from Concordia University, l’Université de Montréal & l’Université de Québec à Montréal.192 English & a subset of 39 participants completed retest.

216 French & a subset of 42 participants completed retest.Retest questionnaires were completed after an average delay of 24.90 (SD = 13.80) days.There were no significant differences in SPIN scores at time 1 between those who completed the retest and those who did not.

SPIN was translated, according to recommendations by Vallerand (1989), into French by experts in the field and then back-translated into English by individuals unfamiliar with the original English version of the scale.

.69**

.76**FSS+

.51**

.48**BDI

.51**French

.43**EnglishPIWSURLanguage

.69**

.76**FSS+

.51**

.48**BDI

.51**French

.43**EnglishPIWSURLanguage

.93

.93

Cronbach’s Alpha

.82**

.86**

Test-Retest Correlation

FrenchEnglish

Language

.93

.93

Cronbach’s Alpha

.82**

.86**

Test-Retest Correlation

FrenchEnglish

Language

12.8119.37620216French12.4717.49600192EnglishSDMeanMax.Min.NLanguage

12.8119.37620216French12.4717.49600192EnglishSDMeanMax.Min.NLanguage

+

+

Convergent & Divergent Validity Analyses:To examine whether the SPIN-FSS correlation was stronger than the SPIN-BDI and SPIN-PIWSUR, t-tests for dependent correlations were calculated.As predicted the SPIN-BDI correlation was significantly weaker than the SPIN-FSS correlation in both English (t (179) = 5.44, p < .01) and French (t (183) = 5.23, p < .01).As predicted the SPIN-PIWSUR correlation was also significantly weaker than the SPIN-FSS correlation in both English (t (183) = 6.83, p < .01) and French (t (201) = 6.68, p < .01).

Similar psychometric results were obtained for the English and French versions of the SPIN:

The SPIN exhibited excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability in both English and French.Convergent and divergent validity are demonstrated by significantly higher SPIN-FSS correlations than SPIN-BDI or SPIN-PISWUR correlations in both English and French.

The French SPIN will be valuable for assessment, treatment and research in French-speaking populations.

The French SPIN will be especially valuable to clinicians and researchers in Quebec as it is one of the most comprehensive measures of social anxiety, assessing fear, avoidance, and physiological sensations associated with social anxiety.

Confirmatory Facor Analysis of the SPIN:Table 1: Goodness of fit indexes for the 3 factor structure of the SPIN

χ2 CFIa RMSEAb

French 485.53** .92 .12 English 389.22** .93 .11 Comparative Fit Index Root Mean Square Error of Approximation** p < .001 a b

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):In both the French and English samples, CFA demonstrated the three factor structure of the SPIN (fear, avoidance, physiology) was not a good fit according to guidelines recommended by Tabachnik and Fidell (2001).Allowing items to overalp across the factors did not improve the fit of the model.

The three factor (fear, avoidance, physiology) structure of the SPIN was not supported in either the originial English version or the new French version of the SPIN. It is therefore recommended to the SPIN total score be used instead of the individual subscale scores.

1