Social Phobia: Assessment and Treatment of Social Skill

描述(由申请人提供)：来自国家共病研究的数据显示，社交恐惧症的终生患病率为13%，6个月患病率为8%。这些数字表明，社交恐惧症是最常见的焦虑障碍，也是普通人群中最常见的情绪障碍之一(仅次于药物滥用)。社交恐惧症起病较早，而且似乎有一个长期的、坚持不懈的过程。社交恐惧症患者遭受严重的情绪困扰、社交回避、更多地使用酒精和其他药物、更多的自杀念头和企图、不完全的教育程度以及社会、教育和职业失调(包括丧失生产力)。在理解社交恐惧症的精神病理学方面，一个突出的差距是，这种障碍是否以社交技能缺陷为特征。现有的数据提供了不同的结果，但临床证据的份量是，社交恐惧症患者缺乏社交技能，但确切的技能缺陷仍有待阐明。社交恐惧症患者在社交技能方面是否存在缺陷，对心理社会治疗的实施方式有一定的影响。 在概念上，这项申请中提出了两项研究。第一项研究旨在确定社交恐惧症是否表现出社交技能缺陷，阐明这些缺陷的性质，并确定一般恐惧症是否比非广泛性恐惧症(特定亚型)更有缺陷。为了将社交恐惧症患者的社交技能与正常人的社交技能进行比较，将包括一个正常的对照组。此外，将正常人群包括在内，将允许产生常模，以便在未来的研究中将社交恐惧症的社交技能与之进行比较。第二项研究旨在确定广泛性社交恐惧症的技能缺陷是否可以改善，以及社交技能的改善是否与整体社交功能的改善有关

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Data from the National Comorbidity Study revealed the lifetime prevalence of social phobia to be 13% and the 6-month prevalence to be 8%. These figures indicate that social phobia is the most common anxiety disorder and one of the most common emotional disorders in the general population (second only to substance abuse). Social phobia has an early onset and appears to follow a chronic and unremitting course. Social phobics suffer severe emotional distress, social avoidance, increased use of alcohol and other drugs, increased suicidal ideation and attempts, incomplete educational attainment, and social, educational and occupational maladjustment (including lost productivity). A prominent gap in understanding the psychopathology of social phobia is whether the disorder is characterized by deficits in social skills. Extant data have provided mixed findings, but the weight of the clinical evidence is that social phobics are deficient in social skills but the exact skill deficits remain to be elucidated. Whether or not social phobics are deficient in social skill has implications for how psychosocial treatment is carried out. Conceptually, there are two studies proposed in this application. The first study is designed to determine if social phobics manifest social skills deficits, explicate the nature of the deficiencies, and determine if the generalized are more deficient than the non-generalized (specific subtype). A normal comparison group will be included in order to allow for a comparison of social skills in social phobics to those of normals. Also, including the normal group will allow for the generation of norms to which the social skills of social phobics in future studies can be compared. The second study is designed to determine if skill deficits in generalized social phobics can be improved, and whether improvements in social skills are associated with improvements in overall social functioning