Fear questionnaires for simple phobias: psychometric evaluations of a Norwegian sample

The present study presents psychometric data for four different phobic fear questionnaires in a Norwegian sample of 284 subjects. The questionnaires concerned fear of flying, snakes, spiders and a questionnaire of general phobic complaints. The results showed a high estimate of internal consistency, and a very high test-retest reliability for all questionnaires. A low to moderate degree of intercorrelation between the questionnaires appeared. A clear sex difference emerged in responding to all four questionnaires. In addition, a clinical sample of phobics with fear of flying as the main symptom was compared to the larger sample on a fear of flying scale. The results showed a clear difference in responding between the samples. The present study concludes that the four different fear questionnaires yielded a high degree of reliability, and their use in clinical practice is encouraged.