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

PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH

卷:289

Article

Bitan, Dana Tzur^1,2,3  Grossman-Giron, Ariella^1,2,3  Bloch, Yuval^2,3  Mayer, Yael⁴  Shiffman, Noga⁵  Mendlovic, Shlomo^2,3 

[1] Ariel Univ, Dept Behav Sci, IL-40700 Ariel, Israel

[2] Shalvata Mental Hlth Ctr, Hod Hasharon, Israel

[3] Tel Aviv Univ, Sackler Sch Med, Ramat Aviv, Israel

[4] Univ British Columbia, Fac Med, Dept Occupat Sci & Occupat Therapy, Vancouver, BC, Canada

[5] Hillel Yaffe Med Ctr, Hadera, Israel

关键词: Fear;    COVID-19;    Coronavirus;    Anxiety;    Stress;    Depression;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113100

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

Free