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Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population
Open accessAbstract
Mental health clinicians worldwide have been expressing concerns regarding the broad psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, only a few studies have thus far evaluated the degree of fear of COVID-19, partially due to the lack of validated measures. In this study we evaluated the psychometric properties of the Hebrew version of the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), recently developed to assess different aspects of the fear of the pandemic, in a normative population of participants in Israel. Participants (n = 639) were asked to complete the FCV-19S scale, as well as to report anxiety, depression, and stress levels using validated scales. The results a unidimensional factor structure of the FCV-19S which explained 53.71% of the variance. When forcing a two-factor structure model, the analysis revealed two factors pertaining to emotional fear reactions and symptomatic expressions of fear. Gender, sociodemographic status, chronic illness, being in an at-risk group, and having a family member dying of COVID-19 were positively associated with fear of COVID-19. The measure was associated with anxiety, stress and depression. These results suggest that the FCV-19S has good psychometric properties, and can be utilized in studies assessing the effects of the pandemic on the population's mental health.
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“The scale has already been used in a number of studies and has been translated into several languages, showing good psychometric properties and Cronbach’s α values from 0.82 to 0.89 (Alyami et al., 2020; Bitan et al., 2020; Sakib et al., 2020; Satici et al., 2020; Soraci et al., 2020; Winter et al., 2020).”
From Intolerance of Uncertainty and Tendency to Worry as Mediators Between Trust in Institutions and Social Support and Fear of Coronavirus and Consequences of the Pandemic (2021) · cites this paper as Bitan et al., 2020
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“It has recently been observed that fear of COVID-19 is associated more with anxiety and stress and to a lesser extent with depression (Tzur Bitan et al., 2020).”
From Fear of COVID-19, Stress, and Anxiety in University Undergraduate Students: A Predictive Model for Depression (2020) · cites this paper as Tzur Bitan et al., 2020
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Metadata
- Authors
- Tzur Bitan, D., Grossman-Giron, A., Bloch, Y., Mayer, Y., Shiffman, N., & Mendlovic, S.
- Affiliations
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Hillel Yaffe Medical Center (IL)
- Venue
- Psychiatry Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-07
- Volume
- 289
- Pages
- 113100
- ISSN
- 0165-1781 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7227556
- OpenAlex
- W3025589218
- Cited by
- 553
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 84 · 2022: 163 · 2021: 198 · 2020: 51
- FWCI
- 49.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychiatry Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- fear of COVID-19, Fear of COVID-19 Scale, psychometric validation, Hebrew version, factor structure, anxiety, depression, stress, COVID-19 pandemic mental health, chronic disease, vulnerable populations, family bereavement
- MeSH terms
- Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adult, Anxiety, Mental Disorders, Depression, Fear, Female, Humans, Israel, Male, Pneumonia, Viral, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychometrics, Risk Factors, Stress, Psychological, Reproducibility of Results, Coronavirus Infections, Young Adult, Pandemics
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