title: A comparison of two spider fear questionnaires.
abstract: The present studies compared the psychometric properties of two self-report measures of spider fear: Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ) and Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ). In the first study, adequate test-retest stability and internal consistency was found for both FSQ and SPQ. In the second study, both instruments were able to differentiate between phobic and non-phobic subjects. Furthermore, FSQ as well as SPQ were sensitive to therapeutic change and correlated in a meaningful way with other subjective and behavioral indices of spider fear. Data suggest that the FSQ is superior to the SPQ in measuring fear in the non-phobic range. Also, the FSQ taps a somewhat different aspect of subjective spider fear (i.e., fear of harm) and, consequently, may provide additional information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Limburg University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Muris
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Merckelbach
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D003887:Desensitization, Psychologic; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013112:Spiders; D016896:Treatment Outcome