Setting diagnostic thresholds for social phobia: considerations from a community survey of social anxiety

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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to gain a broader perspective on social anxiety in the community than has been achieved by epidemiologic surveys to date. METHODS: The authors conducted a telephone survey of social anxiety among 526 randomly selected respondents in a medium- sized Canadian city. RESULTS: Sixty-one percent of the respondents reported being much or somewhat more anxious than other people in at least one of the seven social situations surveyed. Speaking to a large audience (i.e., public speaking) was the most frequently feared situation (endorsed by 55.0% of the respondents), followed by speaking to a small group of familiar people (24.9%), dealing with people in authority (23.3%), attending social gatherings (14.5%), speaking to strangers or meeting new people (13.7%), and eating (7.1%) or writing (5.1%) in front of others. When the threshold for caseness was systematically modified--by altering the required level of psychosocial interference or distress or by including or excluding su...

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