Unhelpful Thoughts and Beliefs Linked to Social Anxiety in Stuttering: Development of a Measure

Background: Those who stutter have a proclivity to social anxiety. Yet, to date, there is no comprehensive measure of thoughts and beliefs about stuttering that represent the cognitions associated with that anxiety. Aims: The present paper describes the development of a measure to assess unhelpful thoughts and beliefs about stuttering. Methods & Procedures: The Unhelpful Thoughts and Beliefs about Stuttering (UTBAS) self-report measure contains 66 items that assess the frequency of unhelpful thoughts and beliefs. Items were constructed from a comprehensive file audit of all stuttering cases seen in a cognitive-behavior therapy based treatment programme over a ten-year period. Outcomes & Results: Preliminary investigations indicate that the UTBAS has high levels of test-retest reliability (r = 0.89) and internal consistency (Chronbach's alpha = 0.98). It has good known-groups validity, being able to discriminate between stuttering and non-stuttering participants on items that contain no reference to stuttering [t(38) = 8.06, p less than 0.0001], with a large effect size (d = 2.3). It has good convergent validity (r = 0.53-0.72) and discriminant validity (r = 0.24-0.27). The UTBAS sensitivity to change was supported by improvements in thoughts and beliefs related to social anxiety following cognitive-behavioural treatment for anxiety in stuttering [t(25) = 10.13, p less than 0.0001]. The effect size was large (d = 2.5). Conclusions & Implications: Implications for the use of the UTBAS as an outcome measure and a clinical tool are discussed, along with the potential value of the UTBAS to explore the well-documented social anxiety experienced by those who stutter. (Contains 2 tables.)