Persian Version of Social Appearance Anxiety Scale: A Psychometric Evaluation

Abstract

Background: Social appearance anxiety refers to the fear of negative evaluation and judgment about appearance in social situations. Previous scales have focused more on body dysmorphic, and a tool that can measure this anxiety in social situations has not been previously introduced. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS) in the student community. Methods: This psychometric study was conducted on a sample of 415 Iranian students in 2020 using the convenience sampling method. The participants completed the Social Physique Anxiety Scale, Body Dysmorphic Scale, and Body Shape Scale. Cronbach’s alpha, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and convergent validity were used to examine internal consistency. The data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 24) and AMOS software (version 21). Results: Cronbach’s alpha for total score was 0.95. The relationship between the SAAS and Body Dysmorphic Scale (r = 0.73; P < 0.01), Body Shape Scale (r = 0.46; P < 0.01), and Social Physique Anxiety Scale (r = 0.79; P < 0.01) showed good convergent validity. The EFA extracted one factor that explained 0.60 of the total variance. After testing the one-factor model in CFA, the analysis showed good fitness indexes (comparative fit index = 0.95; goodness of fit index = 0.91). The item-total correlation of the Iranian SAAS was within a range of 0.51 - 0.84. Conclusions: The present scale has a high internal consistency and reliability and can be used for research and evaluation objectives in clinical settings in Iranian society.

Validation of the Greek Version of Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Adolescents and Young Adults

“…The SAAS in our study have demonstrated good internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha= 0,942, which is consistent with the results of the initial research of Hart et al . (2008) (a1 = 0.94, a2 = 0.95, a3 = 0.94 for the 3 samples) and with validations in other languages ( Reichenberger et al ., 2021 ; Doğan, 2010 ; Goodarzi et al ., 2021 ; Donofre et al ., 2021 ).…”

“…al., 2008 ) and this finding was consistent with other studies in which participants’ SAAS scores did not differ considerably according to sex ( Amil and Bozgeyikli, 2015 ; Şahin et al ., 2013 ). In line with other studies, SAAS demonstrated a significant positive correlation with SPAS ( Hart et al ., 2008 ; Goodarzi et al ., 2021 ). Additionally, in our study SAAS was positive correlated with measures such as overweight preoccupation, and negative correlated with the appearance evaluation, which is consistent with the results of another validation of the scale ( Reichenberg et al ., 2021 ) and the original study ( Hart et al ., 2008 ).…”

“…( Hart et al ., 2008 ). This scale has been translated and validated in various languages such as Turkish ( Doğan, 2010 ), Persian (Iranian) ( Goodarzi et al ., 2021 ), Italian (Dakanalis et al ., 2016), German ( Reichenberger et al ., 2021 ), Portuguese ( Donofre et al ., 2021 ), with good psychometric properties. The purpose of this research was to validate the SAAS in the Greek language and to assess its psychometric properties in a sample of adolescents and young adults aged 18–35 years, in Greece.…”