It is believed that social phobia has its onset during adolescence and precedes other mental disorders; it is thus important to investigate the condition among young people. To date there is no self-reported scale validated for the Brazilian population. The present study investigated the reliability of the Portuguese-language version of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) among adolescent students from public schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro. After SPIN was translated into Portuguese, a test-retest reliability study was carried out with 190 students. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and weighted kappa (kw²) were estimated, log-linear models were fitted, and Bland & Altman graphs were built. The Portuguese version showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88) and good reliability for total score (ICC = 0.78). Reliability for single items was not very good (kw² between 0.32 and 0.65). The "semi-association" model fit most of the items best. Based on these findings we concluded that the Portuguese-language version of SPIN showed good reliability results, similar to those obtained with the original English-language version.
Phobic Disorders; Psychometrics; Reliability and Validity
