A comparison of two spider fear questionnaires

The present studies compared the psychometric properties of two self-report measures of spider fear: Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ) and Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ). In the first study, adequate test-retest stability and internal consistency was found for both FSQ and SPQ. In the second study, both instruments were able to differentiate between phobic and non-phobic subjects. Furthermore, FSQ as well as SPQ were sensitive to therapeutic change and correlated in a meaningful way with other subjective and behavioral indices of spider fear. Data suggest that the FSQ is superior to the SPQ in measuring fear in the non-phobic range. Also, the FSQ taps a somewhat different aspect of subjective spider fear (i.e., fear of harm) and, consequently, may provide additional information.