Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale: the Turkish version

The present study aimed at establishing the Turkish version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. For this aim interrater, test-retest, and internal reliability coefficients of the Turkish version were assessed as well as its convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity. Subjects were 88 patients with the diagnosis of generalized social phobia, 40 patients with a diagnosis of anxiety disorders other than generalized social phobia, and 40 people had no diagnosis of psychopathology. All reliability assessments indicated good reliability. For convergent and discriminant validity, correlations of 3 scores (2 subscales and the whole scale) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory were examined. Consistent with the expectations of the discriminant validity, correlations based on the whole sample were not significant. On the other hand, consistent with the expectations of the convergent validity, when patients with the diagnosis of generalized social phobia were considered, all the correlations were significant. Finally, the criterion validity of the Turkish version indicated that all 3 scores discriminated patients with the diagnosis of generalized social phobia, not only from the people who were free of psychopathology but also from the patients with the diagnosis of anxiety disorders other than generalized social phobia. Findings were discussed in the light of literature.