Psychometric properties and factor structure of the Iranian version of the Social Phobia Inventory (I-SPIN)

Despite the high prevalence of social anxiety disorder and the necessity of conducting etiological studies, the existing measures of social anxiety lack robust factor structure due to methodological flaws, leading to doubtful results.

The present study is aimed to investigate the factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity of the Iranian version of the Social Phobia Inventory (I-SPIN).

This is a cross-sectional, psychometric study. Two large samples (N1=1210, N2=228) have been selected with the convenience sampling method from the student population of the three different universities in Zanjan city (i.e., University of Medical Sciences, Azad, and Payame Noor University) who were studying in those universities from February to July 2020. CAQ-GE, BAI, BDI-II, and IUS-12 were used in the present study. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted using Mplus-7.4 and SPSS-26 was used to perform internal consistency and validity analyses.

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the two-factor model best fit the data. Besides, the results indicated that the I-SPIN has a positive and significant correlation with anxiety-related measures (p<0.01) and acceptable internal consistency (α=0.92).

Considering the excellent psychometric properties and a robust factor structure of the I-SPIN in an Iranian college student sample, using this measure would improve the accuracy of future studies and help us broaden our knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of this disorder.