title: Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents.
abstract: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) in a sample of 296 adolescents (49% boys) in Grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 with a mean age of 15.52 years. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the three-factor structure of the SAS-A in the Chinese sample: Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE), Social Avoidance and Distress in New Situations (SAD-New), and Social Avoidance and Distress-General (SAD-General). Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were appropriate. The results also revealed a clear and predictable pattern of relationships between the SAS-A and the Questionnaire about Interpersonal Difficulties for Adolescents and the International Personality Item Pool. Chinese boys reported greater SAD-General than Chinese girls, and this difference increased with grade. The SAS-A scores were compared to previously collected data from the USA and Spain, revealing that Chinese adolescents scored significantly higher in social anxiety than American and Spanish adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China. xinyuezhou@126.com
authors.forename: Xinyue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Cándido J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Inglés
authors.forename: María D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Hidalgo
authors.forename: Annette M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: La Greca
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002681:China; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009656:North America; D011581:Psychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D013030:Spain