THE STANDARDIZATION OF SOCIAL PHOBIA INVENTORY (SPIN) IN NONCLINICAL IRANIAN SAMPLES

The purpose of this study was the standardization of the Social Phobia
Inventory (SPIN) in nonclinical Iranian sample based on their sex, academic year, native/non-native
trait and college.
Materials & Methods: The participants were 1743 students of Shahed University who were studying
in 2010-2011 academic year and were selected by cluster sampling and completed Social Phobia
Inventory (SPIN). For the evaluation of validity, internal consistency and repeatability of the SPIN the
concordant validity, Cronbach α coefficient and test-retest methods were used, respectively. In order to
analyze the data Hotelling’s T-square test, multivariate analysis of variance, and Scheffé post-hoc test
were used.
Results: The results showed that there was a correlation between the marks of SPIN with anxiety
subscales of the Anxiety subscales of the symptom checklist SCL-90-R (α<0.001, p<0.7) and SPIN
has internal consistency (α<0.001, p<0.94) and reproducibility/repeatability (α<0.001, p<0.96). Also,
the results indicated the mean of social anxiety in female students compared to males and non-native
students compared to the native ones (p<0.05) and human sciences and medical students compared to
other college students (p<0.01) was significantly higher. However, there was no significant difference
between the students studying different academic years (F=0.42, p<0.000).
Conclusion: This study besides providing schedules of normalization for students are presented
according to their academic year, sex and college and emphasis that SPIN has favorable validity and
reliability