Aspectos cognitivos do falar em público: valida？？o de uma escala de autoavalia？？o para universitários brasileiros

background: fear of public speaking is the most prevalent fear in the general population and among persons with a social anxiety disorder (sad). nevertheless, studies about the assessment of this specific phenomenon are still needed. objectives: to examine the validity of the self statements during public speaking (ssps) scale in a general population of brazilian university students (gp, n = 2314), in an sad sample (n = 88), and in a non-sad sample (n = 90). methods: the study was conducted in two phases: a) completing a self-administered questionnaire in the classroom, b) participating in a telephone and face-to-face interview. results: the ssps showed low/median correlations with the social phobia inventory (gp = 0.22-0.65; sad = 0.28-0.32; non-sad = 0.21-0.30), the beck anxiety inventory (gp = 0.18-0.53; sad = 0.25-0.33; non-sad = 0.22-0.25), and the brief social phobia scale (sad = not significant, non-sad = 0.23-0.31) in all the samples, especially in the gp sample. factorial analysis indicated the presence of two factors associated with positive and negative self-assessment. the study of discriminative validity demonstrated that the ssps has the ability to differentiate between cases and non-cases of sad. discussion: the ssps is an adequate instrument to be used within the brazilian context. the positive self-assessment subscale seems to be more effective for the evaluation of sad samples. the negative self-assessment subscale appears to have a better screening characteristic in the general population of university students.