Clinically significant fear and anxiety of COVID-19: A psychometric examination of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale

Abstract

The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) using an online survey of 398 adult Amazon MTurk workers in the U.S. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the CAS measures a reliable (α = 0.92), unidimensional construct with a structure that was shown to be invariant across gender, race, and age. Construct validity was demonstrated with correlations between CAS scores and demographics, coronavirus diagnosis, history of anxiety, coronavirus fear, functional impairment, alcohol/drug coping, religious coping, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, as well as social attitudes (e.g., satisfaction with President Trump). The CAS also demonstrated solid discrimination ability for functional impairment (AUC =0.88), while the original cut score of ≥9 (76% sensitivity and 90% specificity) showed the strongest diagnostic effectiveness among scores. Overall, these findings are largely consistent with the results of the first CAS investigation and support the validity of this mental health screener for COVID-19 related research and practice.

Modelling the contribution of the Big Five personality traits, health anxiety, and COVID-19 psychological distress to generalised anxiety and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Higher scores indicate higher levels of a COVID-19 anxiety. The CAS has demonstrated good reliability and validity in a recent validation study ( Lee et al, 2020 ). In the current study the Cronbach α = .95.…”

“…In the present study we selected two measures of COVID-19 psychological distress: (1) the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS; Lee, 2020 ; Lee et al, 2020 ) which measures physiological anxiety related to COVID-19-related intrusive thoughts; and (2) the COVID-19 Anxiety Syndrome Scale (C-19ASS; Nikčević & Spada, 2020 ) which measures a cluster of cognitive-behavioural anxiety syndrome features characterised by avoidance, checking, worrying and threat monitoring. Evidence has already suggested that COVID-19 anxiety is a predictor of negative affect (e.g.…”

“…Evidence has already suggested that COVID-19 anxiety is a predictor of negative affect (e.g. Lee, 2020 ; Lee et al 2020a , 2020b ). We have no evidence, as of yet, that the COVID-19 anxiety syndrome is directly linked to negative affect and, if so, that it is a predictor of negative affect independently of COVID-19 anxiety.…”

“…During this period, our lives have changed profoundly. A key change brought by the pandemic has been a surge of pandemic-related psychological distress including fear ( Ahorsu et al, 2020 ), anxiety ( Lee, 2020 ; Lee et al, 2020b ), perceived threat (Conway, Woodard, & Zubrod, 2020), stress ( Taylor et al, 2020 ), and an anxiety syndrome characterised by avoidance, checking, worrying and threat monitoring ( Nikčević & Spada, 2020 ). Early findings from China have suggested that more than one quarter of the general population have experienced moderate to severe levels of stress- or anxiety-related symptoms in response to COVID-19 ( Qiu et al, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2020 ).…”

COVID-19: Common Constructions of the Pandemic and Their Implications

“…A recent constructivist study (Milman et al, 2020) provided evidence for the thesis that challenges to core beliefs and meanings are predictive of coronavirus anxiety, or "coronaphobia" (Asmundson & Taylor, 2020). Coronavirus anxiety appears to be positively correlated with functional impairment, fear about coronavirus, alcohol or drug coping, negative religious coping, extreme hopelessness, and passive suicidal ideation (Lee et al, 2020).…”