The fear of COVID-19 scale: Its structure and measurement invariance across 48 countries.
Artur J SawickiMagdalena Żemojtel-PiotrowskaJulia M BalcerowskaMonika J SawickaJarosław PiotrowskiConstantine SedikidesPeter K JonasonJohn MaltbyMladen AdamovicAttisso Mathieu Désiré AgadaOli AhmedLaith Al-ShawafSeth Christopher Yaw AppiahRahkman ArdiZana Hasan BabakrSergiu BălţătescuMario BonatoRichard Gregory CowdenPhatthanakit ChobthamkitLaura De PrettoValdiney V GouveiaCarmen HaretcheDzintra IliškoJohn Jamir Benzon R ArutaFanli JiaVeljko JovanovićTomislav JukićShanmukh V KambleNarine KhachatryanMartina Klicperova-BakerMetodi KoralovMonika KovacsMabelle KretchnerAitor Larzabal FernandezKadi LiikNajma Iqbal MalikKarine MalyshevaChanki MoonStephan MuehlbacherSofya K Nartova-BochaverJorge Torres-MarínEmrah ÖzsoyJoonha ParkElena PiccinelliJano Ramos-DiazOgnjen RiđićAdil SamekinAndrej StarcTra Thi Thanh KieuRobert TomsikCharles S UmehEduardo Wills-HerreraAnna WłodarczykZahir VallySomayeh ZandPublished in: Psychological assessment (2022)
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).