Cross-cultural validation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN): study of the items and internal consistency

Objective: The objective of the present study was to carry out the cross-cultural validation for Brazilian Portuguese of the Social Phobia Inventory, an instrument for the evaluation of fear, avoidance and physiological symptoms associated with social anxiety disorder. Method: The process of translation and adaptation involved four bilingual professionals, appreciation and approval of the back-translation by the authors of the original scale, a pilot study with 30 Brazilian university students, and appreciation by raters who confirmed the face validity of the Portuguese version, which was named "Inventario de Fobia Social". As part of the psychometric study of the Social Phobia Inventory, analysis of the items and evaluation of the internal consistency of the instrument were performed in a study conducted on 2314 university students. Results: The results demonstrated that item 11, related to the fear of public speaking, was the most frequently scored item. The correlation of the items with the total score was quite adequate, ranging from 0.44 to 0.71, as was the internal consistency, which ranged from 0.71 to 0.90. Discussion/Conclusions: The authors conclude that the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Social Phobia Inventory proved to be adequate regarding the psychometric properties initially studied, with qualities quite close to those of the original study. Studies that will evaluate the remaining indicators of validity of the Social Phobia Inventory in clinical and non-clinical samples are considered to be opportune and necessary.