Validation and psychometric properties of the Japanese version Fear of COVID-19 Scale among adolescents.

Abstract

<p>In the context of the global outbreak of COVID-19, there is an urgent need to explore the effects of this pandemic on the mental health of adolescents. The present study aims to adapt and validate a Japanese-version Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) with a sample of adolescent students from Japan. To this end, the Japanese-version FCV-19S, Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire for Adolescents (PHQ-A), and Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Scale (PVDS) were administered to a sample of Japanese adolescents in schools. The results of statistical analyses revealed that the Japanese-version FCV-19S has a bi-factor model consisting of the emotional response factor and the physiological response factor, with a high reliability (emotional: α = .71; physiological: α = .82). Constructive validity was shown by the significant positive correlation between the GAD-7 and emotional (r = .11) and physiological response (r = .25), between PHQ-A and physiological response (r = .19), as well as between both factors and the PVDS subscale (rs &amp;gt; .16). Taken together, these results indicate that the Japanese-version FCV-19S has a high internal consistency and a moderately good construct validity.</p>

Mental Health Screening for COVID-19: a Proposed Cutoff Score for the Greek Version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S)

“…Different studies, conducted in other countries during the peak of the pandemic (e.g., Bangla (Sakib et al 2020), English (Winter et al 2020), Japanese (Masuyama et al 2020), Hebrew (Bitan et al 2020), Italian (Soraci et al 2020), Russian-Belarusian (Reznik et al 2020), and Turkish (Haktanir et al 2020;Satici et al 2020)), reported FCV-19S mean scores that exceeded the cutoff point score of 16.5, obtained from this study to distinguish elevated from normal fear of COVID-19. On the contrary, data from the current study, obtained after the recall of imposed measures, produced a lower overall mean compared with the proposed cutoff score, indicating that intense fear has been diminished.…”

“…This scale, the only available and validated in the Greek language (Tsipropoulou et al 2020), has been translated and validated in 18 other languages, that is, in Argentinian Spanish (Alomo et al 2020 (Haktanir et al 2020;Satici et al 2020), and Urdu (Mahmood et al 2020). The unidimensionality of the FCV-19S scale has been widely evaluated, yet a bifactorial solution (i.e., emotional responses and physiological responses) has also been proposed (Barrios et al 2020;Bitan et al 2020;Chi et al 2020;Huarcaya-Victoria et al 2020;Masuyama et al 2020).…”

The effect of ego-resiliency and COVID-19-related stress on mental health among the Japanese population

“…We used the dataset of the Primary Survey in Japan (PSJ) in the Resilience to COVid-19 in Each Region (RE-COVER) project. The RE-COVER project aims to reveal recovery factors that re-energize mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on psychological resilience and several positive psychological aspects, among four countries: Japan, the United States, China, and Malaysia (Masuyama et al, 2020; https://osf.io/p56ga/).…”

“…The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S;Ahorsu, et al, 2020) was used to assess fear of COVID-19 among the people. In this study, we used the Japanese version of FCV-19S (FCV-19S-J), validated by Masuyama et al (2020), with sufficient reported reliability. The FCV-19S-J consists of the original seven items of FCV-19S, but is divided into two subscales: emotional responses (items 1, 2, 4, and 5) and physiological responses (items 3, 6, and 7).…”

“…Uncertainty creates a fear of developing an infectious disease. Fear of infection is an important psychological factor in this pandemic situation (Masuyama et al, 2020). Indeed, fear is an adaptive instinct defense mechanism that is fundamental for survival and involves several biological processes of preparation for a response to potentially threatening events such as a pandemic (Ornell et al, 2020).…”