COVID-19 anxiety scale (CAS): Development and psychometric properties
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COVID-19 anxiety scale (CAS): Development and psychometric properties Washington Allysson Dantas Silva 1,2
&
Tátila Rayane de Sampaio Brito 1
&
Cicero Roberto Pereira 1
Accepted: 11 November 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The objective of the present research is to develop and validate the COVID-19 Anxiety Scale (CAS). We conducted three studies to gather evidence regarding content and construct validity, as well to evaluate the reliability of the measure. Study 1 is subdivided into two studies. In Study 1a, we analyze the content validity of the new measure through content expert analysis (N = 10 expert raters). In Study 1b (N = 30), we perform a pilot study with a sample from the target population. In Study 2 (N = 352), we explored the unifactorial structure of the measure, and analyzed its internal consistency verified. Finally, in Study 3 (N = 200), we assess the adequacy of the factor structure and gather evidence on convergent-discriminant validity and gender-scale invariance. In summary, our results demonstrate that CAS is a reliable and adequate instrument to assess COVID-19 related anxiety. Keywords COVID-19 . Anxiety . Pandemic . Measures
Introduction The impacts of the new Coronavirus pandemic (SARS-Cov2) on the population’s mental health is one of the greatest challenges faced by humanity in the twenty-first century. The virus was first identified in the city of Wuhan, China, and has been recognized as the cause of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, under the acronym COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019). Due to the exponential increase in the number of cases, the speed of infection, and the number of deaths by the disease, the World Health Organization declared a state of pandemic in March 2020 (WHO. World Health Organization, 2020). To exemplify the rapid proliferation of the virus and the infection’s effects on the body, on October 27st in Brazil, 15.726 new cases were reported throughout the national territory, totaling almost six millions confirmed cases and 150 thousand deaths, prompting the disease to be considered the main cause of deaths in the country (Brazil. Health Ministry, 2020). Therefore, there is a critical
* Washington Allysson Dantas Silva [email protected] 1
Present address: Departament of Psychology, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, PB, Brazil
2
João Pessoa, Brazil
social context creating the optimal conditions for the emergence of psychological factors, affecting people’s quality of life and psychological well-being. Studies have shown that crisis situations, such as the new coronavirus pandemic, have a negative impact on individual’s mental health (Kang et al., 2020; Mukhtar, 2020). The extreme concern about the possibility of becoming infected with COVID-19, or the imminence of the idea of death itself, can be intensified during the pandemic period (Pakpour & Griffiths, 2020). Such excessive concern may lead people to change their psychological functioning, by emphasizing the negative aspects of
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