The fear of COVID-19 scale: Validation in spanish university students

Highlights

• Moderate presence of fear, although the scores are not particularly high in Spanish university students.

• Young university students (first-year) scored higher on fear of COVID-19 on the FCV-19S than students to second-, third- and fourth-year.

• Students from the faculties of health sciences and social sciences scored higher on fear of COVID-19 on the FCV-19S than students of other degrees.

• The fear of COVID-19 scale used for the present survey evidenced a good and robust psychometric properties.

Abstract

The emergence of the COVID-19 and its consequences has led to fears, worries, and anxiety among individuals worldwide. Recently, Ahorsu et al. (2020) developed the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S). The present study aimed to translate and validate the FCV-19S in Spanish university students.

The sample comprised 606 Spanish´undergraduates with a mean age of 21.59 years old. We also used a six items from the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) by van Knippenberg, Duivenvoorden, Bonke & Passchiner (1990).

The Fear of COVID-19 scale used for the present survey evidenced a good alpha measure of internal consistency or reliability analysis with ordinal alpha and ordinal omega. Seven items with acceptable corrected item-total correlation were retained and further confirmed by significant and strong factor loadings. Concurrent validity was supported by the six items of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).

The Fear of COVID-19 Scale, a seven-item scale, has a stable unidimensional structure with robust psychometric properties. It is reliable and valid in assessing fear of COVID-19 among the Spanish university students.