[Revision and validation of Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents]

To adapt the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (LSAS-CA) to Chinese cultural contexts and assess its reliability and validity among Chinese adolescents.

A total of 2103 vocational high school students (917 males and 1186 females; mean age 16.73±1.24 years) in Guangdong Province completed an online survey using the LSAS-CA. Item analysis and psychometric evaluations were conducted. The concurrent validity of the scale was assessed using the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and Post-Event Processing Inventory-Trait (PEPI-T), and its discriminant validity was examined using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). Three months later, 210 of the students were retested to examine the test-retest reliability of LSAS-CA.

The Chinese LSAS-CA retained 24 items (12 social interaction and 12 performance situations) for assessing anxiety and avoidance with a total of 48 scored responses. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for comparing fitting of 4 competing models (unidimensional, two-factor, bifactor, and higher-order models), and the bifactor model showed the best fit: anxiety bifactor model (χ²=3168.263, df=224, χ²/df=14.144, RMR=0.022, GFI=0.875, AGFI=0.832, PGFI=0.653, NFI=0.931, TLI=0.921, CFI=0.936, and RMSEA=0.079); avoidance bifactor model (χ²=3144.601, df=216, χ²/df=14.558, RMR=0.019, GFI=0.875, AGFI=0.826, PGFI=0.630, NFI=0.944, TLI=0.933, CFI=0.948, and RMSEA=0.080).

The revised Chinese version of LSAS-CA has acceptable reliability and validity in the context of Chinese culture and provides a more convenient measurement tool for Chinese researchers to study adolescent social anxiety.