Fatalism due to the possibility of coronavirus infection: Generation and validation of an instrument (F-COVID-19)

Abstract

Coronavirus has generated a kind of "mass hysteria" in various populations. A validation process was generated for a test that measures fatalism in the face of the possibility of infection by the coronavirus. A validation process was carried out in five phases: literature search and construction of the first draft, substantive judgement with 28 experts, formal evaluation with 280 people, pilot for exploratory factor analysis in 389 people (in both cases there were 17 cities in Peru) and confirmation of the validity of the final construct with 10 experts. The statisticians of KMO (0.779) and Bartlett (572.6; gl = 21; p < 0.001) presented acceptable and significant results. The total variance explained by the 7 items distributed in 2 factors is 58.9%, which is adequate. Robust analyses show that the factor structure is satisfactory (X2 = 21.161; p = 0.007; IFC = 0.984; GFI = 0.996; TLI = 0.957; RMSEA = 0.067 and RMSR = 0.033). A 7-item scale was generated to measure the fatalistic measures people might have or take if they became ill with the coronavirus

Keywords

• coronavirus, estudios de validación, resultado fatal, pandemia, sars-covd