The DOI matches its Crossref record; 73 of the 73 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Social anxiety in young people: A prevalence study in seven countries
Open accessAbstract
Social anxiety is a fast-growing phenomenon which is thought to disproportionately affect young people. In this study, we explore the prevalence of social anxiety around the world using a self-report survey of 6,825 individuals (male = 3,342, female = 3,428, other = 55), aged 16-29 years (M = 22.84, SD = 3.97), from seven countries selected for their cultural and economic diversity: Brazil, China, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, US, and Vietnam. The respondents completed the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS). The global prevalence of social anxiety was found to be significantly higher than previously reported, with more than 1 in 3 (36%) respondents meeting the threshold criteria for having Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Prevalence and severity of social anxiety symptoms did not differ between sexes but varied as a function of age, country, work status, level of education, and whether an individual lived in an urban or rural location. Additionally, 1 in 6 (18%) perceived themselves as not having social anxiety, yet still met or exceeded the threshold for SAD. The data indicate that social anxiety is a concern for young adults around the world, many of whom do not recognise the difficulties they may experience. A large number of young people may be experiencing substantial disruptions in functioning and well-being which may be ameliorable with appropriate education and intervention.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
American Psychiatric Association (2013) · doi:10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596 · Cited by 116,369
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Williams, J. B. W., & First, M. (2013) · Encyclopedia of Social Work · doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.104 · Cited by 109,519
Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.593 · Cited by 20,391
Merikangas, K. R., He, J.-P., Burstein, M., Swanson, S. A., Avenevoli, S., Cui, L., Benjet, C., Georgiades, K., & Swendsen, J. (2010) · Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2010.05.017 · Cited by 6,278
(2007) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9780470147658 · Cited by 3,845
Mattick, R. P., & Clarke, J. C. (1998) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(97)10031-6 · Cited by 3,367
Liebowitz, M. R. (2015) · Modern Trends in Pharmacopsychiatry · doi:10.1159/000414022 · Cited by 2,266
The ESEMeD/MHEDEA 2000 Investigators, Alonso, J., Angermeyer, M. C., Bernert, S., Bruffaerts, R., Brugha, T. S., Bryson, H., de Girolamo, G., de Graaf, R., Demyttenaere, K., et al. (2004) · Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica · doi:10.1111/j.1600-0047.2004.00327.x · Cited by 1,819
Comorbidity of anxiety and unipolar mood disorders
Mineka, S., Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1998) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.377 · Cited by 1,573 · cited 1×
“The impact of social anxiety is widespread, affecting functioning in various domains of life and lowering general mood and wellbeing [9].”
BackgroundPeer Relationships in Adolescence
Brown, B. B., & Larson, J. (2009) · Handbook of Adolescent Psychology · doi:10.1002/9780470479193.adlpsy002004 · Cited by 1,208
Cited by
Are online mental health interventions for youth effective? A systematic review.
Zhou, X., Edirippulige, S., Bai, X., & Bambling, M. (2021) · Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare · doi:10.1177/1357633x211047285 · Cited by 107
Salari, N., Heidarian, P., Hassanabadi, M., Babajani, F., Abdoli, N., Aminian, M., & Mohammadi, M. (2024) · Journal of Prevention · doi:10.1007/s10935-024-00789-9 · Cited by 90
The Prevalence of Adolescent Social Fears and Social Anxiety Disorder in School Contexts
Alves, F., Figueiredo, D. V., & Vagos, P. (2022) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph191912458 · Cited by 38
“, shaking, sweating, blushing, stuttering) being visible to others and/or fear of seeming anxious, strange, incompetent, or uninteresting [3].”
BackgroundJystad, I., Bjerkeset, O., Haugan, T., Sund, E. R., & Vaag, J. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.663161 · Cited by 28
Ebrahimi, S., Moheb, N., & Alivani Vafa, M. (2024) · Practice in Clinical Psychology · doi:10.32598/jpcp.12.1.922.1 · Cited by 7
Metadata
- Authors
- Jefferies, P., & Ungar, M.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2020-09-17
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e0239133
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3087228052
- Cited by
- 316
- References
- 73
- FWCI
- 27.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Social anxiety in young people: A prevalence study in seven countries. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1371/journal.pone.0239133
- The paper
- Jefferies, P., & Ungar, M. (2020). Social anxiety in young people: A prevalence study in seven countries. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239133
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
