The behavioral avoidance test (BAT) is a well-known diagnostic tool assessing fear by directly measuring avoidance behavior. For instance, in spider phobia, participants or patients gradually approach a live spider until they feel too uncomfortable to continue. However, the use of different BAT protocols in various studies hampers the comparability of results. Moreover, conducting the test requires considerable preparation by researchers and clinicians. Thus, we have developed an open-access online BAT (vBATon). We validated its efficacy in measuring avoidance behavior and eliciting feelings of anxiety and disgust by comparing it to a real-life BAT (rl-BAT). Spider-fearful (N = 31) and nonfearful (N = 31) individuals completed a rl-BAT and vBATon on two separate dates within a 1-week interval. As expected, both tests successfully distinguished between spider-fearful and nonfearful individuals. Crucially, equivalence tests confirmed that vBATon captures avoidance behavior, anxiety, and disgust equal to the rl-BAT. Assessing validity, we found moderate to high correlations between vBATon and (a) the rl-BAT and (b) self-report measurements of spider fear (Spider Phobia Questionnaire, Fear of Spiders Questionnaire). Overall, our study displayed initial evidence of validity of vBATon and suggests that it is a standardized, efficient, and user-friendly alternative to rl-BATs for measuring spider fear. It can be utilized in both research and clinical practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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针对蜘蛛恐惧症的开放式在线行为回避测试 (BAT) 的开发和初步验证。


行为回避测试（BAT）是一种众所周知的诊断工具，通过直接测量回避行为来评估恐惧。例如，在蜘蛛恐惧症中，参与者或患者逐渐接近活蜘蛛，直到他们感到不舒服而无法继续。然而，在各种研究中使用不同的 BAT 方案妨碍了结果的可比性。此外，进行测试需要研究人员和临床医生进行大量准备。因此，我们开发了一个开放访问的在线 BAT（vBATon）。我们通过将其与现实生活中的 BAT (rl-BAT) 进行比较，验证了其在测量回避行为以及引发焦虑和厌恶感方面的功效。害怕蜘蛛的人 (N = 31) 和不害怕蜘蛛的人 (N = 31) 在 1 周间隔内的两个不同日期完成了 rl-BAT 和 vBATon。正如预期的那样，两项测试都成功地区分了害怕蜘蛛的个体和不害怕蜘蛛的个体。至关重要的是，等效性测试证实 vBATon 捕获的回避行为、焦虑和厌恶与 rl-BAT 相同。评估有效性时，我们发现 vBATon 与 (a) rl-BAT 和 (b) 对蜘蛛恐惧的自我报告测量（蜘蛛恐惧症问卷、蜘蛛恐惧问卷）之间存在中等到高度相关性。总体而言，我们的研究显示了 vBATon 有效性的初步证据，并表明它是 rl-BAT 测量蜘蛛恐惧的标准化、高效且用户友好的替代方案。它可用于研究和临床实践。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。