EVIDÊNCIAS ADICIONAIS DE VALIDADE DA CORONAVIRUS ANXIETY SCALE (CAS-BR) EM UMA AMOSTRA DE MULHERES BRASILEIRAS

Abstract

In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic and workers adjusted their work activities to the remote form. Excessive information about COVID-19 and intense exposure to situations of suffering can lead to increased anxiety. Therefore, it is urgent to identify groups at high risk of psychological impacts, such as women, in order to target treatments. Therefore, the objective was to seek additional evidence of scale validity, internal consistency and correlation with other variables of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS-BR) in the Brazilian mothers. Correlations were verified between anxiety regarding COVID-19 and perceived stress, measured by the Perceived Stress Scale, and resilience, assessed by the Brief Resilient Coping Scale. 203 Brazilian women aged between 23 and 59 years, mostly from the Southeast region (61.1% from Minas Gerais, 17.7% from Rio de Janeiro) participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out through structural equation modeling, using the MPLUS software. The scale showed good fit indices (x² =12.909 (5); CFI =0.997 TLI = 0.994; RMSEA = 0.088). The factor loading were excellent and ranged from 0.84 to 0.91, while the instrument's internal consistency assessed by Cronbach's alpha was 0.91. It is concluded that the scale has adequate psychometric properties, and its use is suggested to assess the levels of anxiety regarding the coronavirus of women in Brazilian territory.