SENSITIVITY OF OUTCOME MEASURES FOR TREATMENTS OF GENERALIZED SOCIAL PHOBIA

To accurately evaluate treatments of generalized social phobia, it is not sufficient that measures be reliable and valid, they also must be sensitive to treatment-related changes. The present study evaluated th e sensitivity of the following five measures: (a) The Social Phobia sc ale from the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI-SP), (b) the SP AI difference score (SPAI-D), (c) the short form of the Fear of Negati ve Evaluation Scale (FNE-S), (d) the Social Phobia scale from the Fear Questionnaire (FQ-SP), and (e) peak anxiety during an impromptu speec h task. Unmedicated people with generalized social phobia (N = 60) wer e randomly allocated to one of the following two treatments: (a) eight sessions of associative therapy (AT; i.e., free association to social ly relevant thoughts and memories), followed by eight sessions of in v ivo exposure (EXP); or (b) eight sessions of cognitive restructuring ( CR), followed by eight sessions of EXP. Outcome measures were complete d on entry into the study, after completing AT or CR (post-I), after c ompleting EXP (post-II), and at 3-month follow-up. For each outcome me asure, effect sizes were computed for post-I, post-II, and follow-up. The SPAI-SP and SPAI-D tended to have the largest effect sizes, and th e FNE-S and FQ-SP tended to yield the smallest effects. The results ad d to the growing body of research supporting the usefulness of the SPA I scales as a treatment-outcome measure for studies of generalized soc ial phobia.