Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents: Factorial invariance and latent mean differences across gender and age in Spanish adolescents

Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A): Measuring Social Anxiety Among Finnish Adolescents

“…These levels of social anxiety symptoms reported by Finnish adolescents were broadly comparable to levels found for adolescents in the U.S., Spain and Turkey [7,16,22,23,26], but lower than levels for adolescents in China [25]. The general absence of gender differences in social anxiety, with the exception of boys reporting more generalized social avoidance and distress than girls, was similar to findings from China [25], but stand in contrast to reports from the U.S. and Spain, where girls report higher social anxiety than boys [7,16,22,23]. Among Finnish adolescents, an elevation in social anxiety at age 14 was evident across all SAS-A subscales and the total scale.…”

“…The three-factor model of the original SAS-A fit also reasonably well to the data presented by Storch et al [20] with the GFI (Goodness of Fit Index) and CFI (Comparative Fit Index) over 0.90 and the RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation) of 0.07. In Spain, studies by Olivares et al [23] and Ingles et al [22] also support the original three-factor structure of the SAS-A for the Spanish translation. In the most recent study, which used representative sampling of adolescents and sophisticated analyses to examine the factorial invariance of the SAS-A across gender and age groups, Ingles et al [22] provided evidence that the original factor structure of the SAS-A holds across gender and age groups for Spanish adolescents aged 14-17 years.…”

“…In Spain, studies by Olivares et al [23] and Ingles et al [22] also support the original three-factor structure of the SAS-A for the Spanish translation. In the most recent study, which used representative sampling of adolescents and sophisticated analyses to examine the factorial invariance of the SAS-A across gender and age groups, Ingles et al [22] provided evidence that the original factor structure of the SAS-A holds across gender and age groups for Spanish adolescents aged 14-17 years. Similarly, Zhou et al [25] found that the fit indices for the original three-factor model of social anxiety using the Chinese translation of the SAS-A were acceptable; both the GFI and CFI were over 0.90 and the RMSEA and SRMR (Standardized Root Mean Square Residual) were below 0.08.…”

“…[23] found small but not linear age effects for FNE and a decline in total social anxiety symptoms with increasing age until 16 years, after which social anxiety symptoms increased. In a more recent study of Spanish adolescents, Ingles and colleagues [22] found that SAD-New subscale scores diminished from early (14-15 years) to later adolescence. Similarly, Cakin Memik and colleagues [26] reported a decrease of social anxiety symptoms across all SAS-A subscales and the total scale among Turkish 13-14-yearolds relative to 11-13-year-olds.…”

“…Test-retest reliability coefficients for the SAS-A subscales have been reported to range from 0.54 to 0.78 over a 2 month period, to 0.47-0.75 over a 6 month period [14], and to 0.55-0.62 over a 12 month period [20]; test-retest for the SAS-A total was recently reported to be 0.73 over a 2 month period [19]. For the Spanish translation of the SAS-A, subscale alphas have ranged from 0.71 to 0.94; and alphas for the total SAS-A scale have ranged from 0.89 to 0.91 in the two studies reporting these values [22,23]. Test-retest reliability coefficients of 0.75-0.83 over a 10-day period have been reported for the SAS-A subscales, and a test-retest coefficient of 0.86 has been reported for the total scale [21].…”