Using a Recently Developed Self-Report Instrument to Assess Social Anxiety Life Interference in Individuals with Co-occurring Depression: A Known-Groups Analysis

Abstract

Social anxiety is a common condition that often entails substantial adverse impacts on social, educational, and occupational functioning. Moreover, social anxiety often co-occurs with depression, making it difficult to distinguish the unique effects of each condition, which can pose a challenge to effective treatment planning and intervention. Until recently, clinicians have not had access to a validated psychometric instrument that measures the degree of life interference stemming from social anxiety, and that distinguishes life interference associated with social anxiety from that associated with depression. Fortunately, recent work has yielded a novel instrument that combines a measure of social anxiety life interference with a measure of depression life interference, providing a measure that can identify functional disruptions uniquely associated with social anxiety, and that may occur in the presence of comorbid depression. The present article reviews two studies describing the development and psychometric properties of the Social Anxiety and Depression Life Interference Inventory (SADLI-24) and adds to the existing literature by demonstrating the discriminative accuracy of the inventory using a “known-groups” methodology. The article concludes by providing recommendations for the practical application of the SADLI-24 and suggesting future directions for research with the instrument.