Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) across countries: Measurement invariance issues.

Chung‐Ying Lin,Mélody Mailliez,Anders Broström,Kun‐Chia Chang,Wen‐Li Hou,Yu‐Pin Chen,Mohammed A Mamun,Yi‐Jie Kuo,José Aparecido Da Silva,Irfan Ullah,Akihiro Masuyama,Damian Scarf,Mark D Griffiths,Arnaud Carre,Paolo Soraci,Yunier Broche‐Pérez,Koubun Wakashima,Amir H Pakpour

doi:10.1002/nop2.855

Abstract

AimThe threats of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) have caused fears worldwide. The Fear of COVID‐19 Scale (FCV‐19S) was recently developed to assess the fear of COVID‐19. Although many studies found that the FCV‐19S is psychometrically sound, it is unclear whether the FCV‐19S is invariant across countries. The present study aimed to examine the measurement invariance of the FCV‐19S across eleven countries.DesignCross‐sectional study.MethodsUsing data collected from prior research on Bangladesh (N = 8,550), United Kingdom (N = 344), Brazil (N = 1,843), Taiwan (N = 539), Italy (N = 249), New Zealand (N = 317), Iran (N = 717), Cuba (N = 772), Pakistan (N = 937), Japan (N = 1,079) and France (N = 316), comprising a total 15,663 participants, the present study used the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch differential item functioning (DIF) to examine the measurement invariance of the FCV‐19S across country, gender and age (children aged below 18 years, young to middle‐aged adults aged between 18 and 60 years, and older people aged above 60 years).ResultsThe unidimensional structure of the FCV‐19S was confirmed. Multigroup CFA showed that FCV‐19S was partially invariant across country and fully invariant across gender and age. DIF findings were consistent with the findings from multigroup CFA. Many DIF items were displayed for country, few DIF items were displayed for age, and no DIF items were displayed for gender.ConclusionBased on the results of the present study, the FCV‐19S is a good psychometric instrument to assess fear of COVID‐19 during the pandemic period. Moreover, the use of FCV‐19S is supported in at least ten countries with satisfactory psychometric properties.

Highlights

The threats and consequences of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to individual's health and related aspects have been investigated in many different ways, including their psychological health and behaviours from individual and government perspectives (Lin & Cheng, 2020; Rieger, 2020; Shrivastava & Shrivastava, 2020)
In order to respond to the need of assessing mental health difficulties and associated behaviors among different populations during the COVID-19 pandemic (Holmes et al, 2020; Lin, 2020; Pramukti et al, 2020; Taylor et al, 2020), the present study used datasets from ten countries to evaluate the measurement invariance and other psychometric properties of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S; Ahorsu, Lin, Imani, et al, 2020; Ahorsu, Lin, & Pakpour, 2020)
The single-factor structure was confirmed in different ethnic populations (Bangladeshi, British, Brazilian, Taiwanese, Italian, New Zealander, Iranian, Cuban, Pakistani, Japanese and French), different genders and different age groups

Summary

Introduction

The threats and consequences of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to individual's health and related aspects have been investigated in many different ways, including their psychological health and behaviours from individual and government perspectives (Lin & Cheng, 2020; Rieger, 2020; Shrivastava & Shrivastava, 2020). In order to respond to the need of assessing mental health issues, several research teams have developed different instruments to understand the psychological response to COVID-19 (Ahorsu, Lin, Imani, et al, 2020; Ahorsu, Lin, & Pakpour, 2020; Lee, 2020a, 2020b; Taylor et al, 2020) These instruments include the: (a) five-item Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) (Lee, 2020a), (b) four-item Obsession with COVID-19 Scale (OCS) (Lee, 2020a), (c) 36-item COVID Stress Scale (CSS) (Taylor et al, 2020) and (d) seven-item Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) (Ahorsu, Lin, Imani, et al, 2020; Ahorsu, Lin, & Pakpour, 2020). Ransing et al (2020) conducted a rapid review to summarize the features of these four instruments. Ransing et al (2020) indicated that one of the most important issues for these instruments was the need to translate, culturally adapt, assess and validate the existing instruments to achieve the maximum utility

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