The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Psychometric Properties of the Ethiopian Amharic Version

Abstract

Fear is an adaptive response that alerts individuals to the presence of a danger or threat. However, in the context of the current novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the fear experienced could be intense because the number of victims of the virus is continuously increasing globally and is inducing severe mental health concerns. The seven-item Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) assesses the severity of fear related to COVID-19 and has already been validated in many languages. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Amharic (Ethiopian) version of the FCV-19S. An online survey including the Amharic versions of the FCV-19S and the six-item UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-6) was administered to 307 Amharic-speaking participants using convenience sampling. The participants’ age ranged between 18 and 70 years. In the evaluation process, confirmatory factor analysis, Item Response Theory, concurrent validity, and reliabilities (Cronbach’s alpha, McDonald’s omega, Guttman’s lambda, and composite reliability) of the Amharic version of the FCV-19S were performed. The uni-dimensional structure of the FCV-19S was confirmed and the Amharic version of the FCV-19S had strong psychometric properties. All reliability coefficients of the Amharic FCV-19S were satisfactory, with sound concurrent validity shown by significant and positive correlations with loneliness. The results indicate that the FCV-19S can be used in research to assess the fear of COVID-19 among Amharic-speaking populations.

Validation of the FCV-19 Scale and Assessment of Fear of COVID-19 in the Population of Mozambique, East Africa

“…The unidimensionality was consistent with several other studies, 10,11,[13][14][15]18,20,23,24,29,30 including three conducted with the Brazilian Portuguese-speaking population 33,35,36 and one African study conducted with the Ethiopian Amharic-speaking population. 31 In the present study, Mozambicans had an overall average fear score of 20.5 (SD = 5.8), which was lower than that reported in the Ethiopian study (21.65, SD = 5.58, for those living in the country, and 20.79, SD = 5.78, for those not living in the country). Additionally, 49.1% of the Mozambicans showed a level of fear greater than 20.5.…”

“…Since the publication of the Persian version of the FCV-19S, 8 it has been translated into several other languages and evaluated based on samples from various countries: English [United Kingdom, New Zealand, USA, and India], [9][10][11][12] [24][25][26][27] Japanese [Japan], 28 Greek [Greece], 29 Vietnamese [Vietnam], 30 Ethiopian Amharic [Ethiopia], 31 and Portuguese [Brazil]. [32][33][34][35][36] The psychometric properties of the FCV-19S in these languages proved to be robust, with internal consistency reliability supported by Cronbach's alpha greater than 0.80.…”

“…16,17,19,25,27,28,34 In this regard, some aspects of the two-factor solution presented by Bitan et al 16 were pointed out as inappropriate by Pakpour et al 37 Additionally, the FCV-19S concurrent validity was supported by associations between the FCV-19S and higher scores of anxiety, depression, stress, psychological distress, life dissatisfaction, worry, loneliness, and perceived vulnerability to disease. 8,14,18,23,24,27,28,31,34 In the African context, a particular concern is with the population's mental health since the social support used to cope with psychological distress was impacted by the restrictive measures implemented to control the coronavirus's spread. Social isolation and the danger of the virus associated with physical proximity are aspects of this pandemic that can represent particular damage to African cultures, characterized by broad social support networks and community exchanges based on extended families.…”

The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on disordered eating behaviors: the mediation role of psychological distress

“…While these restrictive measures aimed to ensure social distancing and help to decrease the rate of COVID-19 infection, such limitations imposed a burden on the mental health of the general population that is now emerging, with reports of increased levels of stress, depression, anxiety, insomnia, feelings of loneliness, cases of post-traumatic stress and suicide [ 3 – 7 ]. In a study with the Portuguese population 25% of the adults reported moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress due to lockdown [ 8 ] and a recent study showed that higher levels of intolerance for uncertainty seemed to have a direct impact on mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, with rumination and fear of COVID-19 mediating this association [ 9 ].…”

Cross-cultural measurement invariance of the fear of COVID-19 scale in seven Latin American countries

“…In this regard, Ahorsu et al (2020) recently developed the Fear of , to briefly assess the fear of COVID-19. The FCV-19S was translated into different languages and has been shown to have adequate psychometric evidence of validity and reliability (Alyami et al, 2020;Andrade et al, 2020;Bitan et al, 2020;Broche-P erez et al, 2020;Caycho-Rodr ıguez et al, 2020Elemo et al, 2020;Giordani et al, 2020;Haktanir et al, 2020;Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Mahmood 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;St anculescu, 2021;Tsipropoulou et al, 2020;Wakashima et al, 2020). However, many of these investigations have concluded that the FCV-19S has a one factor structure, while others report the presence of two factors related to physiological and emotional responses to the fear of COVID-19 (Bitan et al, 2020;Caycho-Rodr ıguez et al, 2020Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Masuyama et al, 2020;Reznik et al, 2020).…”