The Polish COVID Stress Scales: Considerations of psychometric functioning, measurement invariance, and validity.

Katarzyna Adamczyk,Julia Pradelok,D Angus Clark,Yee Cheng Kueh

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260459

Katarzyna Adamczyk, Julia Pradelok + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260459

Copy DOI

Abstract

The COVID Stress Scales (CSS) were developed to measure stress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. To further investigate the psychometric properties of the CSS, we used data collected in Poland across two waves of assessment (N = 556 at T1 and N = 264 at T2) to evaluate the factor structure, reliability (at the item and scale level), measurement invariance (across the Polish and Dutch translations of the CSS, and time), over time stability, and external associations of the Polish-language version of the CSS (CSS-PL). Overall, results suggest that the CSS-PL is psychometrically robust, largely invariant across the countries and time-lags considered. The CSS-PL was also positively related to other measures of COVID-19 fear, health anxiety, obsessive compulsive symptoms, anxiety, depression, and intent to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. This study thus provides considerable information about the CSS’s items and scales, and lays the foundation for future investigations into COVID stress across time and different populations.

Highlights

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been one of the largest, most widespread pandemics since the end of World War 2 [1, 2]
We considered how strongly the COVID Stress Scales (CSS)-PL was related to a similar assessment of COVID related stress—the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) [21]—and, to examine divergent associations, the extent to which the CSS-PL was associated with impulsive behavior measured by the Impulsive Behavior Scale Short Version (SUPPS-P) [22]
Participants who did not complete the second assessment were older, less willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and more likely to be unsure about if they knew anyone infected with COVID-19 compared to those who completed the second assessment

Summary

Introduction

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been one of the largest, most widespread pandemics since the end of World War 2 [1, 2]. The current pandemic has disrupted healthcare systems, political dynamics, economic stability, and social functioning around the world [4]. The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected mental health and well-being in a variety of ways [1, 5,6,7]. One specific psychological consequence of COVID-19 may be the emergence of a multidimensional stress response linked to the pandemic. This has been termed the COVID Stress Syndrome, and is measured by the COVID Stress Scale (CSS) [7, 8]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion