Identifying Analogue Samples of Individuals With Clinically Significant Social Anxiety: Updating and Combining Cutoff Scores on the Social Phobia Inventory and Sheehan Disability Scale

The use of analogue samples, as opposed to clinical groups, is common in mental health research, including research on social anxiety disorder (SAD). Recent observational and statistical evidence has raised doubts about the validity of current methods for establishing analogue samples of individuals with clinically significant social anxiety. Here, we used data from large community samples of clinical and nonclinical participants to determine new cutoff scores on self-report measures of social anxiety symptoms and symptom-related impairment. We then examined whether using these newly determined cutoff scores alone or in combination improves the identification of individuals who have SAD from those who do not, revealing the most ideal cutoff combination to be 34 or above on the Social Phobia Inventory and 11 or above on the Sheehan Disability Scale. Finally, we compared the effects of our new cutoff scores with old cutoff scores by extracting analogue samples of participants with high social anxiety from historical data on seven large groups of undergraduate Psychology research participants from the authors' institution spanning the past 5 years (2018-2023). We observed that the new combined cutoff scores identified markedly fewer students as having high social anxiety, lending credibility to their utility. We also observed a striking increase in levels of social anxiety symptoms in the undergraduate population from before to after the COVID-19 pandemic. Of note, most participants were under 30 and identified as Caucasian or Asian women, indicating that future research is needed to examine whether our findings generalize to diverse populations. Public Significance Statement To gain insights into clinical syndromes, mental health researchers routinely use cutoff scores on symptom questionnaires to study people from the population whose characteristics resemble those of people with mental disorders. The present study recommends the use of new, combined cutoff scores on commonly used measures of social anxiety symptoms and anxiety-related impairment to increase the validity and quality of research on social anxiety disorder, a prevalent and disabling problem.