The essential feature of social phobia is a marked and persistent fear of social or performance situations in which the subject may be exposed to unfamiliar persons or to the judgment of others. The subject is afraid to act in a humiliating or embarrassing way. Exposure to the feared stimulus almost invariably provokes anxiety symptoms. The avoidance, fear or anxious anticipation of encountering the phobic stimulus interferes significantly with the person's daily functioning. The boundaries among shyness, social phobia and avoiding personality disorder are not easily detectable.

Scoring

Each of the SHY instruments consists of 168 items coded as present or absent for one or more periods of at least 3-5 days through the subject’s lifetime or over the past week or month and collapsed into four domains and an appendix.
See algorithm section, below on this page for how to score the instrument.

Psychometric Properties

Dell’Osso L, Cassano GB, Sarno N, Millanfranchi A, Pfanner C, Gemignani A, Maser JD, Shear MK, Grochocinski VJ, Rucci P, Frank E: Validity and reliability of the Structured Clinical Interview for Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum (SCI-OBS) and of the Structured Clinical Interview for Social Phobia Spectrum (SCI-SHY). Int J Meth Psych Res 9:11-24, 2000.

Dell’Osso L, Rucci P, Cassano GB, Maser JD, Endicott J, Shear MK, Samo N, Saettoni M, Grochocinski VJ, Frank E: Measuring social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorders: Comparison of interviews and self-report instruments. Compr Psychiatry 43:81-87, 2002.

Note: each items is scored as "0" (NO), "1" (YES). Items from 1 to 12 (first domain) are omitted from the SHY-sr "last week"> version and from the SHY-sr "last month" version. For any domains do not score substance abuse (fifth domain)
(1) social phobic traits during childhood and adolescence	sum of items 1-12
(2) interpersonal sensitivity	sum of items 13-41
(3) behavioral inhibition and somatic symptoms	sum of items 42-64
(4) specific anxieties and phobic features	sum of items 65-162
(5) appendix for substances	sum of items 163-168
Total score for SHY-sr "last month" (sum of domains scores): range 0 - 150 Total score for SHY-sr "last week" (sum of domains scores): range 0 - 150 Total score for SHY-sr "lifetime" (sum of domains scores): range 0 - 162 Total score for SCI-SHY (sum of domains scores): range 0 - 162 Threshold for total score for SHY-sr "lifetime": 59 Threshold for SCI-SHY or for other SHY-sr versions: none determined at this time