Title
The fear of COVID-19 scale: Its structure and measurement invariance across 48 countries
Date Issued
01 March 2022
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Sawicki A.J.
Żemojtel-Piotrowska M.
Balcerowska J.M.
Sawicka M.J.
Piotrowski J.
Sedikides C.
Jonason P.K.
Maltby J.
Adamovic M.
Agada A.M.D.
Ahmed O.
Al-Shawaf L.
Appiah S.C.Y.
Ardi R.
Babakr Z.H.
Bălţătescu S.
Bonato M.
Cowden R.G.
Chobthamkit P.
De Pretto L.
Gouveia V.V.
Haretche C.
Iliško D.
Aruta J.J.B.
Jia F.
Jovanović V.
Jukić T.
Kamble S.V.
Khachatryan N.
Klicperova-Baker M.
Koralov M.
Kovacs M.
Kretchner M.
Fernandez A.L.
Liik K.
Malik N.I.
Malysheva K.
Moon C.
Muehlbacher S.
Nartova-Bochaver S.
Torres-Marín J.
Özsoy E.
Park J.
Piccinelli E.
Riđić O.
Samekin A.
Starc A.
Kiêu T.T.T.
Tomsik R.
Umeh C.S.
Wills-Herrera E.
Wlodarczyk A.
Vally Z.
Zand S.
Publisher(s)
American Psychological Association
Abstract
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a source of fear around the world. We asked whether the measurement of this fear is trustworthy and comparable across countries. In particular, we explored the measurement invariance and cross-cultural replicability of the widely used Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), testing community samples from 48 countries (N = 14,558). The findings indicate that the FCV-19S has a somewhat problematic structure, yet the one-factor solution is replicable across cultural contexts and could be used in studies that compare people who vary on gender and educational level. The validity of the scale is supported by a consistent pattern of positive correlations with perceived stress and general anxiety. However, given the unclear structure of the FCV-19S, we recommend using latent factor scores, instead of raw scores, especially in cross-cultural comparisons. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Start page
294
End page
310
Volume
34
Issue
3
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Psicología
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85125691484
PubMed ID
Source
Psychological assessment
ISSN of the container
10403590
Sponsor(s)
Jarosław Piotrowski was supported by grant number 2017/26/E/HS6/00282 from the National Science Centre, Poland. Peter K. Jonason’s work was partially funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (PPN/ULM/2019/1/00019/U/00001) and a grant from the National Science Centre of Poland (2019/35/B/HS6/00682). The authors declare that there was no direct collaboration between researchers from conflicting countries in accord with many national laws.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus