Development and Initial Validation of the COVID-19 Anxiety Scale

Abstract

Background: Safeguarding the psychological well-being of the public is also an integral component of fighting COVID-19. However, there is limited availability of psychometric measures to document COVID-19-related anxiety among the general public. Objectives: This study was aimed at developing a validated scale to measure COVID-19-related anxiety. Methods: Three hundred and seven subjects from different gender, educational categories participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis for the determination of factor structure, Pearson's correlation test, and Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA were employed in data analysis using SPSS version 20 software. Results: COVID-19 Anxiety Scale (CAS) demonstrated a two-component structure identified as: “fear of social interaction;” “illness anxiety.” The final scale with seven items demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's Alpha 0.736). CAS exhibited good construct validity showing moderately negative correlation (Pearson's r = −0.417) with the self-rated mental health and resulted in higher scores among individuals with lower educational qualification (Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA χ2 [2, 303] = 38.01; P = 0.001). Conclusion: CAS is a rapidly administrable, valid, and reliable tool that can be used to measure COVID-19-related anxiety among the Indian population.

Keywords

• coronavirus
• principal component analysis
• psychometrics