A multi‐centric study on validation of the Fear Scale for COVID‐19 in five Arabic speaking countries

Abstract

Background The Eight‐item Fear Scale is a unidimensional scale evaluating the perceived feelings of fear associated with the thought of the coronavirus. Aim The Arabic version of this scale did not exist; hence, this study aimed to translate and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Fear Scale in participants aged 18 years and above in five Arabic countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan by using a cross‐sectional survey design. Method The English version of the COVID‐19 Fear Scale was translated into Arabic following the guidelines and disseminated through social media. Factorial and convergent validity and internal reliability were evaluated. Results: The total number of participants was 2783; the majority was young (41.9%) and female (60.5%). Fear scores were moderate in four countries and severe in Egypt. The scale showed good structural validity, with the items explaining up to 70% of the variance. The scale items correlated significantly with the total scores, and the Cronbach alpha was above 0.9. Conclusion The study concluded that the Arabic Fear Scale is a psychometrically robust scale that can be used to evaluate the perceived feelings of fear with the thought of the coronavirus or pandemic in general.

Keywords

• Arabic
• fear
• psychometrics
• questionnaire
• reliability
• validity