Social anxiety disorder is characterized by strong and persistent fear of social situations, impairing the daily life of affected people. The objective of the present work was to identify empirical studies involving instruments that assess the functional impairment experienced by persons with social anxiety disorder in the execution of daily activities and to analyze the implications of such difficulties. A systematic search of indexed databases was performed. Ten articles were identified and assigned to two groups: a) papers dealing with the proposal of instruments for the evaluation and analysis of psychometric qualities (n = 4); and b) papers dealing with the impact of social anxiety disorder on the quality of life and on daily activities (n = 6). The psychometric studies emphasized the little attention paid to instruments validated in order to specifically evaluate functional impairment, and the papers dealing with the impact on quality of life and on daily activities detected the presence of dissatisfaction with life and health in patients with social anxiety disorder. Analysis of the literature stressed the importance of evaluating the functional impairment caused by social anxiety disorder in daily functioning using objective measurements. The relevance of such evaluations for planning and interventions focusing on social anxiety disorder in the context of multidisciplinary mental health practice is highlighted.
Social anxiety; functional impairment; instruments; scales; review