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Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population.

ABSTRACT: Mental health clinicians worldwide have been expressing concerns regarding the broad psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, only a few studies have thus far evaluated the degree of fear of COVID-19, partially due to the lack of validated measures. In this study we evaluated the psychometric properties of the Hebrew version of the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), recently developed to assess different aspects of the fear of the pandemic, in a normative population of participants in Israel. Participants (n = 639) were asked to complete the FCV-19S scale, as well as to report anxiety, depression, and stress levels using validated scales. The results a unidimensional factor structure of the FCV-19S which explained 53.71% of the variance. When forcing a two-factor structure model, the analysis revealed two factors pertaining to emotional fear reactions and symptomatic expressions of fear. Gender, sociodemographic status, chronic illness, being in an at-risk group, and having a family member dying of COVID-19 were positively associated with fear of COVID-19. The measure was associated with anxiety, stress and depression. These results suggest that the FCV-19S has good psychometric properties, and can be utilized in studies assessing the effects of the pandemic on the population's mental health.

SUBMITTER: Tzur Bitan D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7227556 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population.

Tzur Bitan Dana D Grossman-Giron Ariella A Bloch Yuval Y Mayer Yael Y Shiffman Noga N Mendlovic Shlomo S

Psychiatry research 20200515

Mental health clinicians worldwide have been expressing concerns regarding the broad psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, only a few studies have thus far evaluated the degree of fear of COVID-19, partially due to the lack of validated measures. In this study we evaluated the psychometric properties of the Hebrew version of the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), recently developed to assess different aspects of the fear of the pandemic, in a normative population of partici ...[more]

PMID: 32425276

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Project description:BackgroundAt the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, information about fear of COVID-19 was very limited in Chinese populations, and there was no standardized and validated scale to measure the fear associated with the pandemic.ObjectiveThis cross-sectional study aimed to adapt and validate a fear scale to determine the levels of fear of COVID-19 among the general population in mainland China and Hong Kong.MethodsA web-based questionnaire platform was developed for data collection; the study instruments were an adapted version of the 8-item Breast Cancer Fear Scale ("Fear Scale") and the 4-item Patient Health Questionnaire. The internal construct validity, convergent validity, known group validity, and reliability of the adapted Fear Scale were assessed, and descriptive statistics were used to summarize the participants' fear levels.ResultsA total of 2822 study participants aged 18 years or older were included in the analysis. The reliability of the adapted scale was satisfactory, with a Cronbach α coefficient of .93. The item-total correlations corrected for overlap were >0.4, confirming their internal construct validity. Regarding convergent validity, a small-to-moderate correlation between the Fear Scale and the 4-item Patient Health Questionnaire scores was found. Regarding known group validity, we found that the study participants who were recruited from Hong Kong had a higher level of fear than the study participants from mainland China. Older adults had a higher level of fear compared with younger adults. Furthermore, having hypertension, liver disease, heart disease, cancer, anxiety, and insomnia were associated with a higher fear level. The descriptive analysis found that more than 40% of the study participants reported that the thought of COVID-19 scared them. About one-third of the study participants reported that when they thought about COVID-19, they felt nervous, uneasy, and depressed.ConclusionsThe psychometric properties of the adapted Fear Scale are acceptable to measure the fear of COVID-19 among Chinese people. Our study stresses the need for more psychosocial support and care to help this population cope with their fears during the pandemic.

Dataset Information

Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population.

Publications

Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population.

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