Perceived fear of COVID-19 infection according to sex, age and occupational risk using the Brazilian version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale

Abstract

We investigated the fear of COVID-19 infection after proper translation and cultural adaptation of the "Fear of COVID-19 Scale" to the Brazilian Portuguese language. A sample of 1,743 Brazilian participants were included. The scale showed excellent psychometric characteristics. Women showed higher anxiety levels. Fear of COVID-19 scores were lower in males with occupational risk of contamination. On the other hand, women and younger individuals showed higher fear of COVID-19 infection scores. The Brazilian Fear of COVID-19 Scale proved to be a reliable tool with excellent psychometric properties for identifying fear of COVID-19 infection in the Brazilian population.

COVID-19 Phobia in the United States: Validation of the COVID-19 Phobia Scale (C19P-SE)

“…We were not able to find any research on coronaphobia in the literature to compare the current results. However, previous studies examining the level of COVID-19 related fear reported similar findings (e.g., Andrade et al, 2020;Haktanir et al, 2020), where women displayed more extensive fear. In addition, a few others found no gender difference between men and women on corona fear (e.g., Ahorsu et al, 2020).…”

Validation of the FCV-19 Scale and Assessment of Fear of COVID-19 in the Population of Mozambique, East Africa

“…Since the publication of the Persian version of the FCV-19S, 8 it has been translated into several other languages and evaluated based on samples from various countries: English [United Kingdom, New Zealand, USA, and India], [9][10][11][12] [24][25][26][27] Japanese [Japan], 28 Greek [Greece], 29 Vietnamese [Vietnam], 30 Ethiopian Amharic [Ethiopia], 31 and Portuguese [Brazil]. [32][33][34][35][36] The psychometric properties of the FCV-19S in these languages proved to be robust, with internal consistency reliability supported by Cronbach's alpha greater than 0.80. Most of the studies confirmed a unidimensional factor structure for the scale; however, others suggested two-factor solutions.…”

Cross-cultural measurement invariance of the fear of COVID-19 scale in seven Latin American countries

“…In this regard, Ahorsu et al (2020) recently developed the Fear of , to briefly assess the fear of COVID-19. The FCV-19S was translated into different languages and has been shown to have adequate psychometric evidence of validity and reliability (Alyami et al, 2020;Andrade et al, 2020;Bitan et al, 2020;Broche-P erez et al, 2020;Caycho-Rodr ıguez et al, 2020Elemo et al, 2020;Giordani et al, 2020;Haktanir et al, 2020;Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Mahmood et al, 2020;Mart ınez-Lorca et al, 2020;Masuyama et al, 2020;Pang et al, 2020;Perz et al, 2020;Reznik et al, 2020;Sakib et al, 2020;Soraci et al, 2020;St anculescu, 2021;Tsipropoulou et al, 2020;Wakashima et al, 2020). However, many of these investigations have concluded that the FCV-19S has a one factor structure, while others report the presence of two factors related to physiological and emotional responses to the fear of COVID-19 (Bitan et al, 2020;Caycho-Rodr ıguez et al, 2020Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Masuyama et al, 2020;Reznik et al, 2020).…”

“…However, many of these investigations have concluded that the FCV-19S has a one factor structure, while others report the presence of two factors related to physiological and emotional responses to the fear of COVID-19 (Bitan et al, 2020;Caycho-Rodr ıguez et al, 2020Huarcaya-Victoria et al, 2020;Masuyama et al, 2020;Reznik et al, 2020). In addition, recent studies have shown that people in various countries report different levels of fear of COVID-19 using the FCV-19S (e.g., Andrade et al, 2020;Broche-P erez et al, 2020;Doshi et al, 2020;Nikopoulou et al, 2020). While these findings are important, they do not provide sufficient support for the psychometric equivalence of the FCV-19S across countries and call into question the potential biases which might be present.…”

“…In addition, differences in fear of COVID-19 were evaluated among the seven countries. In this case, different emotional and physiological responses to the fear of COVID-19 are expected among the countries evaluated, based on differences in the way each country has dealt with the pandemic and the level of success they have had in containing and mitigating the spread of COVID-19 (Ben ıtez et al, 2020;Garcia et al, 2020; Gonz alez-Bustamante, 2021); this is in addition to the different levels of fear of COVID-19 found using the FCV-19S (Andrade et al, 2020;Broche-P erez et al, 2020;Doshi et al, 2020;Nikopoulou et al, 2020).…”