ObjectiveFear of negative evaluation is a common concern among individuals with visible differences but has received limited attention in systemic sclerosis (jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"SSjats:styled-contentc), which can involve substantial changes to appearance. The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content) was specifically designed to evaluate fear of negative evaluation. There are currently 3 versions of the jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content with strong demonstrated measurement properties: two 8‐item versions (jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐S, jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐8) and one 12‐item version (jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"IIjats:styled-content). The present study evaluated these versions in jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"SSjats:styled-contentc, and identified the most appropriate version for use among jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"SSjats:styled-contentc patients.MethodsParticipants were 1,010 patients with jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"SSjats:styled-contentc enrolled in the Scleroderma Patient‐Centered Intervention Network cohort. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, and Pearson’s product‐moment correlations were used to evaluate structural validity, internal consistency reliability, and convergent and divergent validity, respectively.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that 1‐factor models fit acceptably well for the 12‐item jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"IIjats:styled-content, the 8‐item jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐S, and the 8‐item jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐8. Additionally, all Cronbach’s alphas demonstrated excellent internal consistency reliability (BFNE‐II = 0.98, BFNE‐S = 0.97, BFNE‐8 = 0.96), and all versions had comparable associations with measures of social anxiety, body‐related attitudes, depression, age, and education.ConclusionPsychometric support was found for all 3 versions of the jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content, although the longer 12‐item jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"IIjats:styled-content did not improve measurement compared to the shorter 8‐item versions (jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐S and jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐8). Of these 2, the jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐S has been more widely studied, with strong validity data in a greater number of populations. Therefore, the jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"BFNEjats:styled-content‐S is recommended to assess fear of negative evaluation among patients with jats:styled-content style="fixed-case"SSjats:styled-contentc.
