Psychometric Properties of a Spanish Version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale in General Population of Lima, Peru

Abstract

The current pandemic of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has increased the anxiety and fear experienced by many. The main objective of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish-translated version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) using a sample of population in Peru. This is a cross-sectional instrumental study. Data were collected by a convenience sampling method, resulting in a total of 832 participants, and the collection took place over 1 week, April 17-23, 2020. The original version of the FCV-19S was translated from English into Spanish. The results support a bifactor model consisting of one general factor and two specific factors-one of emotional fear reactions and another of somatic expressions of fear of COVID-19 (CFI = 0.988, RMSEA = 0.075). Invariance between healthcare workers and age groups was reached (ΔCFI < 0.01), but the invariance between men and women was not met (ΔCFI = 0.02). Convergent validity was found with depressive, anxious, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. The general factor of the fear of COVID-19 and two specific factors had an optimal level of internal consistency (ω > 0.89 and α > 0.83). The study found the Spanish-translated version of the FCV-19S has good psychometric properties and presents evidence of validity and reliability.

Tamil version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale

“…Most validation studies have proposed a unidimensional solution, which allows the calculation of a total score (range 7 to 35) by summing all seven items. The scale has shown robust psychometric properties in its various language versions (Ahorsu et al, 2020;Alyami et al 2020;Huarcaya-Victoria et al 2020;Perz et al 2020;Sakib et al 2020;Satici et al 2020;Soraci et al 2020;Tsipropoulou et al 2020) including high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha ranging from .81 to .91).…”

“…Shown above are values for versions in Arabic(Alyami et al 2020), Bangla(Sakib et al 2020), English (New Zealand Samples 1 and 2 as reported byWinter et al 2020, sample from India by Doshi et al 2020, and sample from the US by Perz et al 2020), Hebrew (Study 1 by Bitan et al 2020 and Study 2 by Zolotov et al 2020), Italian (Soraci et al 2020), Persian (Ahorsu et al 2020), Russian (Reznik et al 2020), Spanish (Huarcaya-Victoria et al 2020), and Turkish(Satici et al 2020). For one of the studies reported a Hebrew version(Bitan et al 2020) and the Spanish version(Huarcaya-Victoria et al 2020), no skewness and kurtosis values had been reported. Means for the English (US)…”

Fear of COVID-19 scale: Validity, reliability and factorial invariance in Argentina’s general population

“…To assess the fear of COVID-19, the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S;Ahorsu et al, 2020) was recently developed. It has been translated into several languages and demonstrated adequate psychometric evidence of validity and reliability (Alyami et al, 2020;Bitan et al, 2020;Broche-P erez et al, 2020;Chang et al, 2020;Haktanir et al, 2020;Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Mart ınez-Lorca et al, 2020;Masuyama et al, 2020;Pang et al, 2020;Perz et al, 2020;Reznik et al, 2020;Sakib et al, 2020;Soraci et al, 2020;Tsipropoulou et al, 2020). Most of this research has suggested that this scale has a one-dimensional structure; however, others indicate the presence of two factors: the first related to physiological responses to COVID-19 and the second that represents emotional responses to COVID-19 (Bitan et al, 2020;Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Masuyama et al, 2020;Reznik et al, 2020).…”

“…In addition to the study of the factor structure of the FCV-19S, it is important to evaluate the factor invariance between different groups. However, despite its importance in health sciences (Caycho, 2017), only one study to date has evaluated the factor invariance of FCV-19S among groups of men and women, health and non-health workers, and people under and over 40 years of age, reporting factor invariance only for the latter two groups (Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020). The evaluation of factor invariance allows for evidence to make comparisons between groups (Putnick & Bornstein, 2016).…”

COVID-19 y salud mental en policías peruanos: resultados preliminares

“…Estos porcentajes son superiores a los reportados en la literatura internacional, donde el 14,6% y 9,6% presentaban síntomas de depresión y ansiedad generalizada, respectivamente [3] . Respecto al miedo por la COVID-19, evaluado con la versión peruana de la Fear of COVID-19 Scale [8] , el 42,5% indicó tener mucho miedo de la COVID-19, al 41,6% le incomoda mucho pensar en la COVID-19, el 43% tuvo mucho miedo de perder la vida por la COVID-19. Sin embargo, el 65% reportó que sus manos no se vuelven húmedas cuando piensan en la COVID-19, el 52,3% no se pone nervioso o ansioso cuando ve noticias e historias sobre la COVID-19 en las redes sociales, el 60,8% indicó no tener problemas para dormir y finalmente, al 59,3% no se le acelera el corazón cuando piensa en contraer COVID-19.…”