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The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale is a questionnaire survey that measures the intensity of a patient’s social anxiety or phobia. It consists of 24 items that specify certain social situations and patients rate their fear and avoidance on a scale of zero to three. A higher score indicates a higher degree of social anxiety. It is only one part of the tools for diagnosing a patient.
The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) is a measurement tool that can examine the intensity of a patient’s social anxiety or phobia, if they ever have one. It comes in the form of a questionnaire survey that patients can easily answer on their own and in private. The author of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale was Dr. Michael R. Liebowitz, an American psychiatrist who also founded the Anxiety Disorders Clinic in New York.
The content of the Liebowitz social anxiety scale generally consists of 24 items that specify certain social situations that a patient may experience. Examples of these situations are public use of a telephone, presenting a report in front of a crowd, and attending a party. A patient must provide two responses for each item, one related to fear and one to avoidance. For example, a person should rate her fear of performing on stage and how often she avoids doing it. In some cases where a patient has not yet personally experienced a scenario or two, the instructions suggest asking yourself, “What would I do if I were faced with this situation?”
A patient taking the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale can rate his fear on a scale of zero to three, where zero is no fear and three is severe fear in a given situation. The avoidance rate is also scaled from zero to three, where zero represents that the patient does not avoid the situation, while a response of three means that the patient would usually avoid it. The scores are then tallied to numerically measure a patient’s level of social anxiety. The highest possible score a patient can achieve, when fear and avoidance rates are combined, is 144.
In general, a higher score on the Liebowitz social anxiety scale indicates a higher degree of social anxiety in a patient. A score of 55 to 65 means that the patient has moderate social phobia that is not easily noticed, while a patient with a score of 65 to 80 may have marked or apparent social phobia. Patients who score 80 to 95 have severe social phobia, while those who score above 95 have very severe social anxiety disorder. The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale is only one part of the tools for diagnosing a patient, as a thorough and thorough interview should be conducted between the patient and the psychologist. The questionnaire may be answered multiple times during a patient’s treatment process in order to determine her progress toward overcoming her social anxiety disorder.
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