title: Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents: factorial invariance and latent mean differences across gender and age in Spanish adolescents.
abstract: Little is known about the factorial invariance across gender and age for self-report measures of social anxiety in adolescence. This study examined the factorial invariance and latent mean differences of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) across gender and age groups in 1570 Spanish adolescents (54% girls), ranging in age from 14 to 17 years. Equality of factor structures was compared using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. Measurement invariance for the correlated three-factor model of the SAS-A was found across gender and age samples. Analyses of latent mean differences revealed that girls exhibited higher means than boys on two SAS-A subscales, Fear of Negative Evaluation and Social Avoidance and Distress-New (SAD-New). In addition, on the SAD-New subscale, the structured means significantly diminished from 14-year olds to 16- and 17-year olds and from 15-year olds to 17-year olds. Findings are discussed in terms of the use of the SAS-A with Spanish adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Psychology, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, Avda de la Universidad, s/n, 03202 Elche, Alicante, Spain. cjingles@umh.es
authors.forename: Candido J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Ingles
authors.forename: Annette M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: La Greca
authors.forename: Juan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Marzo
authors.forename: Luis J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Garcia-Lopez
authors.forename: Jose M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Garcia-Fernandez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D013030:Spain