Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread widely leading to a global public health crisis of a pandemic proportion. Whilst infection rates tend to fluctuate in South Africa, COVID-19 remains a life-threatening disease with the capacity to wreak fear and concern. The present study evaluated the psychometric qualities of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) amongst black South African university students (N = 433; Female: 58%; Mage = 23.51 [SD = 4.18]). The FCV-19S demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and acceptable internal consistency (α = 0.87), Omega (ω = 0.88) and the greatest lower bound (GLB = 0.90) reliabilities. In addition, discriminant validity was demonstrated when FCV-19S items loaded separately from ordinary fear. The FCV-19S can be used as a measure of COVID-19-related fear amongst black South African university students.
Highlights
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread widely leading to a global public health crisis
The aim of this study was to validate the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) in South Africa, examining the following psychometric properties of the measure in a sample of black African university students: (1) dimensionality, (2) discriminant validity and (3) reliability
Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) conducted on the FCV-19S revealed a wellfitting model to the data (X2 = 51.637, degrees of freedom [df] = 14, p < 0.001, Tucker– Lewis index (TLI) = 0.975, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.983, standard root mean residual (SRMR) = 0.070, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.079, with a 90% CI [0.057–0.102]) and all parameters were viable
Summary
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread widely leading to a global public health crisis. It is likely to be triggered and exacerbated by the incomplete understanding, uncontrollable nature, ever changing status and recently the discovery of more infectious strains of the virus (Roberts, 2021; WHO, 2020). It is exactly this situation that has led researchers to suspect that conventional models and clinical interventions of general anxiety may not work with the fear associated with COVID-19 (Ahorsu et al, 2020; Perz, Lang, & Harrington, 2020; Rajkumar, 2020)
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