Screening for social phobia in medical in- and outpatients with the German version of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) Z. Sosic a, * , U. Gieler b , U. Stangier c a Department of Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Leimgrubenweg 12-14, 89075 Ulm, Germany b Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine, Gießen, Germany c Department of Clinical Psychology and Intervention, University of Jena, Germany Received 23 January 2007; received in revised form 30 August 2007; accepted 30 August 2007 Abstract Objective: To evaluate the German version of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) as a screening device and to report corresponding cut-off scores for different populations. Method: In Study 1, 2043 subjects from a representative sample completed the SPIN. Cut-off values were established on the basis of means and standard deviations. In Study 2, different aspects of validity were examined in a clinical sample comprising 164 subjects, including social phobic individuals, individuals with other anxiety disorders and depression, and non-clinical control subjects. Internal consistency was evaluated. Convergent and divergent validity were explored using several established measures. Finally, the sensitivity and specificity of the German SPIN with regard to social anxiety classification were investigated by means of receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analyses. Results: In Study 1, mean scores and standard deviations were used to determine cut-off scores for the German SPIN. In Study 2, excellent internal consistency and good convergent and divergent validity were obtained. ROC analyses revealed that the German SPIN performed well in discriminating between social phobic individuals on the one hand and psychiatric and non-psychiatric controls on the other. A cut-off score of 25 represented the best balance between sensitivity and specificity. Conclusion: Comparable to the original version, the German SPIN demonstrates solid psychometric properties and shows promise as an economic, reliable, and valid screening device. # 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Social phobia; Psychometrics; Validity; Screening; Standardization 1. Introduction Over the past two decades, social phobia has gradually come to be recognized as one of the most common chronic psychiatric disorders and the most common anxiety disorder in the population of the western world (Beidel, 1998). Various epidemiological studies have reported that social phobia is one of the most highly prevalent psychological disorders (Kessler et al., 1994). Typical earlier studies, such as the Epidemiological Catchment Area study using the DSM- III system, tend to have lower prevalence rates (2–3%) (Schneier, Johnson, Hornig, Liebowitz, & Weissman, 1992) relative to studies using the DSM-III-R system, Journal of Anxiety Disorders 22 (2008) 849–859 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 731 50062017. E-mail address: zrinka.sosic@uni-ulm.de (Z. Sosic). 0887-6185/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.08.011