The Validity of the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale and the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale with Social Phobic Patients

Authors

Richard G. Heimberg, State University of New York at AlbanyFollow
Debra A. Hope, State University of New York at AlbanyFollow
Ronald M. Rapee, State University of New York at AlbanyFollow
Monroe A. Bruch, State University of New York at Albany

ORCID IDs

Debra A. Hope

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1988

Citation

Behavior Research and Therapy 26:5 (1988), pp. 407–410.

doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(88)90074-5

Comments

Copyright © 1988 Pergamon Press/Elsevier. Used by permission.

Abstract

Turner, McCanna and Beidel’s (1987) recent evaluation of the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS) and the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE) with anxiety disordered patients concluded that the SADS and FNE lacked discriminant validity and may be inappropriate for subject selection or outcome evaluation in studies of social phobia . This paper raises some concerns with the interpretation of the data presented by Turner et al. (1987) and presents additional data from studies in our laboratories that may qualify their conclusions. It is asserted that (a) the SADS and FNE are not appropriate for diagnostic screening of social phobic patients, (b) Turner et al.’s findings may have been the result of clinically meaningful social anxiety in several of the anxiety disorders, (c) significant differences among the anxiety disorders may have been hidden by heterogeneity among patients who receive the diagnosis of social phobia. and (d) the distribution of FNE scores in Turner et al.’s sample may have been unusually depressed.