Confirming validity of The Fear of COVID-19 Scale in Japanese with a nationwide large-scale sample

Abstract

Assessing fear and anxiety regarding COVID-19 viral infection is essential for investigating mental health during this epidemic. We have developed and validated a Japanese-language version of The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) based on a large, nationwide residential sample (n = 6,750) recruited through news and social media responding to an online version of the questionnaire. Data was collected from August 4–25, 2020. Results correlated with K6, GAD-7 and IES-R psychological scales, and T-tests and analysis of variance identified associated factors. All indices indicated the two-factor model emotional fear reactions and symptomatic expressions of fear a better fit for our data than a single-factor model in Confirmatory Factor Analysis (χ2 = 164.16, p<0.001, CFI 0.991, TLI = 0.985, RMSEA = 0.043). Socio-demographic factors identified as disaster vulnerabilities such as female sex, sexual minority, elderly, unemployment, and present psychiatric history associated with higher scores. However, respondent or family member experience of infection risk, or work/school interference from confinement, had greatest impact. Results suggest necessity of mental health support during this pandemic similar to other disasters.

Do Mental Health and Vitality Mediate the Relationship between Perceived Control over Time and Fear of COVID-19? A Survey in an Italian Sample

“…Third, our results find strong evidence of the significant positive relationship between fear of COVID-19 and adverse mental health statuses and, conversely, of the significant negative relationship between fear of COVID-19 and vitality, fully corroborating H4 (path b1) and H5 (path b2). From this perspective, our results are consistent with recent outcomes showing that the COVID-19 fear represents a sort of chronic mental anxiety perceived by individuals under the current uncertain and ongoing pandemic [42][43][44][45]. This psychological distress leads people to be continuously worried about their health and future infection by SARS-CoV-2: depression, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, insomnia, or anger symptoms [46] are reported; in turn, adverse mental health statuses and loss of vitality enhance the fear toward COVID-19 infection.…”

Trust and well-being of postpartum women during the COVID-19 crisis: Depression and fear of COVID-19

“…Also, it is validated in Asian and African languages such as Vietnamese ( Nguyen et al, 2020 ), Bangla ( Sakib et al, 2020 ), Malay ( Pang et al, 2020 ), and Ethiopian ( Elemo, Satci, and Griffiths 2020 ). In Japan, three studies have validated the FCV-19S ( Wakashima et al, 2020 ; Masuyama et al, 2020 ; Midorikawa et al, 2021 ). We used Japanese translation developed by Tachikawa et al (2020) .…”

Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score and Validation of the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 Scale- A National Survey

“…(32) Items on the PHQ-9 were rated on a 4-point Likert scale (0=not at all, 1=several days, 2=more than half the days, 3=nearly every day), providing a 0-27 severity score range. The scores were categorized into 5 groups: none (0-4), mild (5)(6)(7)(8)(9), moderate (10)(11)(12)(13)(14), moderately severe (15)(16)(17)(18)(19), and severe (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27).…”

“…(19)A few studies thereafter have validated the questionnaire in various languages and examined associations with socio-demographic characteristics. (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27) However, only one study as of yet has proposed a cutoff score for the scale. (28) Given that Syria is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to be affected by mental health disorders due to both COVID-19 and war.…”