ABSTRACT
In the past few decades, numerous rating scales have been developed for the assessment of social anxiety disorder. Several recent reviews provide scholarly consideration of the psychometric properties of these instruments (1-7). Rather than restate specifics as to their reliability and validity, this chapter emphasizes social anxiety rating scales from the standpoint of their clinical relevance. In other words, it considers which scales are most useful for the needs of specific clinical situations. As such, this review is limited to commonly used instruments that have demonstrated adequate reliability, validity, and sensitivity to treatment based on empirical studies. The scales considered in this chapter are presented in Table 1. For a more comprehensive review of available scales for assessing social anxiety disorder, the reader is referred to reviews cited above.
