title: Screening social phobia in adolescents from general population: the validity of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) against a clinical interview.
abstract: Social phobia (SP) has onset during early adolescence, and is associated with significant impairment in social and educational functioning of adolescents. Therefore, valid and easy-to-use tools for screening and identification of SP among adolescent community populations are needed. We investigated both construct and discriminative validity, and screening properties of the 17-item Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) relative to SP diagnoses based on a semi-structured clinical interview (K-SADS-PL), in a sample of 752 12 to 17-year-old Finnish students from general population. The SPIN demonstrated good properties to differentiate adolescents with SP and those with sub-clinical SP symptoms (SSP), from adolescents without SP. The SPIN also differentiated adolescents with SP from those with depressive and disruptive disorders. In this sample 27% of participants scored above the previously suggested SPIN cut-off (15 points) for adolescent SP. We suggest using a somewhat higher cut-off score, 24 points, when using the SPIN as a screen for SP in general adolescent populations. This cut-off score resulted in a sensitivity of 81.2%, a specificity of 85.1%, a positive predictive value of 26.9%, and a negative predictive value of 98.6% in relation to the SP diagnosis in our sample. To screen for both SP and SSP, 19 points as a cut-off score produced satisfactory diagnostic efficiency statistics. The SPIN appears to have good properties for screening and identification of adolescent SP.
authors.affiliation: Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere, Finland; Department of Adolescent Psychiatry, Turku University Hospital, Finland. klaus.ranta@tyks.fi
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ranta
authors.forename: Riittakerttu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaltiala-Heino
authors.forename: Päivi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rantanen
authors.forename: Martti T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Tuomisto
authors.forename: Mauri
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marttunen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires