Evaluation of the Modified Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children: Exploring Psychometrics of a More Inclusive Measure

Adolescence is a critical developmental period characterized by identity exploration, including gender identity and sexual orientation. Relatedly, social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a pervasive disorder that emerges during adolescence that significantly impacts interpersonal functioning and more specifically, interpersonal skills within romantic relationships. Currently, the only measure for SAD in adolescents that includes a romantic component is the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-C); however, it relies upon language that utilizes biological sex to describe these relationships. Consequently, this poses gender and sexuality as a binary and potentially limits respondents’ answers. Accordingly, the present study established the psychometric properties of a modified version of the SAQ-C that includes gender and sexual orientation neutral language for romantic interest questions (SAQ-Mod). Participants between 12 and 17 years of age who met diagnostic criteria for SAD were included from two samples utilizing the SAQ-Mod (N = 30) and SAQ-C (N = 58). The SAQ-Mod sample included 20% gender-diverse and 58.6% sexual orientation-diverse youth. In addition to the SAQ-Mod and SAQ-C, other self-report measures of anxiety and depression, and clinician-rated measures were obtained. Findings support the SAQ-Mod as a reliable and valid measure of social anxiety, and highlight the predictive utility of the modified measure in comparison to the original SAQ-C.