[Social anxiety and self-esteem: Hungarian validation of the "Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale - Straightforward Items"].

INTRODUCTION

Although social anxiety disorder (SAD) is the third most frequent emotional disorder with 13-15% prevalence rate, it remains unrecognized very often. Social phobia is associated with low self-esteem, high self-criticism and fear of negative evaluation by others. It shows high comorbidity with depression, alcoholism, drug addiction and eating disorders.

AIM: To adapt the widely used "Fear of Negative Evaluation" (FNE) social phobia questionnaire.

METHOD: Anxiety and mood disorder patients (n = 255) completed the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (30, 12 and 8 item-versions) as well as social cognition, anxiety and self-esteem questionnaires.

RESULTS

All the three versions of the FNE have strong internal validity (α>0.83) and moderate significant correlation with low self-esteem, negative social cognitions and anxiety. The short 8-item BFNE-S has the strongest disciminative value in differentiating patients with social phobia and with other emotional disorders.

CONCLUSIONS

The Hungarian version of the BFNE-S is an effective tool for the quick recognition of social phobia. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(22): 843-850.