Safety Behaviors and Social Anxiety: An Examination of the Social Phobia Safety Behaviours Scale

The Social Phobia Safety Behaviours Scale (SPSBS) is a measure designed to identify and assess safety behavior use. The current study is the first to evaluate the psychometric properties of the English SPSBS. Using four samples (N = 725), the component structure, validity, and ability of the SPSBS to function as a state measure were examined. The results of the principal component analyses suggest that the SPSBS is a two-component measure, consisting of an inhibitory behavior component and a management of physical symptoms component, and the scale has good internal consistency. The SPSBS also showed good concurrent validity in both clinical and nonclinical samples. Moreover, there was evidence to suggest that the SPSBS is an accurate measure of situational use of safety behaviors as compared to observers’ ratings. The results of this investigation show that the SPSBS is a useful tool for the identification and measurement of safety behaviors.