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The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Italian adolescent populations: Construct validation and group discrimination in community and clinical eating disorders samples

Dakanalis, Antonios, Carrà, Giuseppe, Calogero, Rachel M., Zanetti, M. Assunta, Volpato, Chiara, Riva, Giuseppe, Clerici, Massimo, Cipresso, Pietro (2015) The Social Appearance Anxiety Scale in Italian adolescent populations: Construct validation and group discrimination in community and clinical eating disorders samples. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 47 (1). pp. 133-150. ISSN 0009-398X. E-ISSN 1573-3327. (doi:10.1007/s10578-015-0551-1) (KAR id:49174)

Abstract

Anxiety in situations where one’s overall appearance (including body shape) may be negatively evaluated is hypothesized to play a central role in Eating Disorders (EDs) and in their co-occurrence with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Three studies were conducted among community (N = 1995) and clinical (N = 703) ED samples of 11- to 18-year-old Italian girls and boys to (a) evaluate the psychometric qualities and measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) of the Social Appearance Anxiety (SAA) Scale (SAAS) and (b) determine to what extent SAA or other situational domains of social anxiety related to EDs distinguish adolescents with an ED only from those with SAD. Results upheld the one-factor structure and ME/I of the SAAS across samples, gender, age categories, and diagnostic status (i.e., ED participants with and without comorbid SAD). The SAAS demonstrated high internal consistency and 3-week test–retest reliability. The strength of the inter-relationships between SAAS and measures of body image, teasing about appearance, ED symptoms, depression, social anxiety, avoidance, and distress, as well as the ability of SAAS to discriminate community adolescents with high and low levels of ED symptoms and community participants from ED participants provided construct validity evidence. Only SAA strongly differentiated adolescents with any ED from those with comorbid SAD (23.2 %). Latent mean comparisons across all study groups were performed and discussed.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/s10578-015-0551-1
Uncontrolled keywords: Social appearance anxiety scale Psychometrics Social anxiety Eating disorders Comorbidity
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Rachel Calogero
Date Deposited: 29 Jun 2015 11:20 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 01:32 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/49174 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Calogero, Rachel M..

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