Social anxiety questionnaire (SAQ): Development and preliminary validation

Background: The Social Anxiety Questionnaire (SAQ) was designed to assess five dimensions of social anxiety as posited by the Clark and Wells' (1995; Clark, 2001) cognitive model. Methods: The development of the SAQ involved generation of an item pool, followed by a verification of content validity and the theorized factor structure (Study 1). The final version of the SAQ was then assessed for reliability, temporal stability (test re-test reliability), and construct, criterion-related, and contrasted-group validity (Study 2, 3, and 4). Results: Following a systematic process, the results provide support for the SAQ as reliable, and both theoretically and empirically valid measure. A five-factor structure of the SAQ verified and replicated through confirmatory factor analyses reflect five dimensions of social anxiety: negative self-processing; self-focused attention and self-monitoring; safety behaviours; somatic and cognitive symptoms; and anticipatory and post-event rumination. Limitations: Results suggest that the SAQ possesses good psychometric properties, while recognizing that additional validation is a required future research direction. It is important to replicate these findings in diverse populations, including a large clinical sample. Conclusions: The SAQ is a promising measure that supports social anxiety as a multidimensional construct, and the foundational role of self-focused cognitive processes in generation and maintenance of social anxiety symptoms. The findings make a significant contribution to the literature, moreover, the SAQ is a first instrument that offers to assess all, proposed by the Clark-Wells model, specific cognitive-affective, physiological, attitudinal, and attention processes related to social anxiety.