Elsevier

Psychiatry Research

Volume 220, Issues 1–2, 15 December 2014, Pages 705-707
Psychiatry Research

Brief report
Social anxiety in adult autism spectrum disorder

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2014.08.030 Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Adults with ASD report more social anxiety than non-ASD controls.

  • Social anxiety symptoms are more common in Social anxiety disorder than in ASD.

  • Social anxiety disorder was diagnosed in one out of four with ASD.

  • AQ scores were strongly correlated with social anxiety scores in the ASD group.

Abstract

A link has been suggested between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and anxiety disorders. The aim of the study was to examine the severity of social anxiety measured by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale Self-Report and prevalence of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) in adults with ASD, with SAD and a non-ASD comparison group. Individuals with ASD showed significantly higher scores of social anxiety and social avoidance relative to the comparison group, but significantly lower scores relative to the SAD sample.

Keywords

Autism spectrum disorder
Social anxiety disorder
Autism spectrum quotient

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