title: Aviophobia assessment: validating the Flight Anxiety Situations Questionnaire as a clinical identification measure.
abstract: An Internet survey was conducted to validate the Flight Anxiety Situations Questionnaire (FAS; Van Gerwen, Spinhoven, Van Dyck, & Diekstra, 1999) as a clinical identification measure for aviophobia. Nine hundred and seventy six people completed the survey. Using further criteria, the total pool was reduced to 98 aviophobics and 474 non-phobics. Receiver operating characteristic analysis and chi-square tests of associations indicated that minimal scores of 56 (as previously reported in research) and 70 on the FAS were useful predictors of being a flying phobic. However, the empirically derived cut-off score of 70 on the FAS had the best overall balance of Type I and Type II error, such that the diagnostic standard for flying phobia was set neither too low nor too high. Given that 60.3% of participants were university students, results may not be generalizable to the general population but may be particularly useful for researchers at these settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549, USA. RebeccaBSkolnick@gmail.com
authors.forename: Rebecca B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Skolnick
authors.forename: Mitchell L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Schare
authors.forename: Kristin P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Wyatt
authors.forename: Melissa A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Tillman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003625:Data Collection; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires