TY - JOUR
T1 - Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) across countries
T2 - Measurement invariance issues
AU - Lin, Chung Ying
AU - Hou, Wen Li
AU - Mamun, Mohammed A.
AU - Aparecido da Silva, José
AU - Broche-Pérez, Yunier
AU - Ullah, Irfan
AU - Masuyama, Akihiro
AU - Wakashima, Koubun
AU - Mailliez, Mélody
AU - Carre, Arnaud
AU - Chen, Yu Pin
AU - Chang, Kun Chia
AU - Kuo, Yi Jie
AU - Soraci, Paolo
AU - Scarf, Damian
AU - Broström, Anders
AU - Griffiths, Mark D.
AU - Pakpour, Amir H.
N1 - Funding Information:
Chung-Ying Lin was supported in part by a research grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST109-2327-B-006-005). Chung-Ying Lin, Yu-Pin Chen, and Yi-Jie Kuo were supported in part by a research grant from the Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital Cross-Institutions Fund (110-swf-01) The authors would like to thank the participants of the study who generously gave their time and shared their experiences.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - Aim: The threats of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have caused fears worldwide. The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) was recently developed to assess the fear of COVID-19. Although many studies found that the FCV-19S is psychometrically sound, it is unclear whether the FCV-19S is invariant across countries. The present study aimed to examine the measurement invariance of the FCV-19S across eleven countries. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Using data collected from prior research on Bangladesh (N = 8,550), United Kingdom (N = 344), Brazil (N = 1,843), Taiwan (N = 539), Italy (N = 249), New Zealand (N = 317), Iran (N = 717), Cuba (N = 772), Pakistan (N = 937), Japan (N = 1,079) and France (N = 316), comprising a total 15,663 participants, the present study used the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch differential item functioning (DIF) to examine the measurement invariance of the FCV-19S across country, gender and age (children aged below 18 years, young to middle-aged adults aged between 18 and 60 years, and older people aged above 60 years). Results: The unidimensional structure of the FCV-19S was confirmed. Multigroup CFA showed that FCV-19S was partially invariant across country and fully invariant across gender and age. DIF findings were consistent with the findings from multigroup CFA. Many DIF items were displayed for country, few DIF items were displayed for age, and no DIF items were displayed for gender. Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, the FCV-19S is a good psychometric instrument to assess fear of COVID-19 during the pandemic period. Moreover, the use of FCV-19S is supported in at least ten countries with satisfactory psychometric properties.
AB - Aim: The threats of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have caused fears worldwide. The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) was recently developed to assess the fear of COVID-19. Although many studies found that the FCV-19S is psychometrically sound, it is unclear whether the FCV-19S is invariant across countries. The present study aimed to examine the measurement invariance of the FCV-19S across eleven countries. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Using data collected from prior research on Bangladesh (N = 8,550), United Kingdom (N = 344), Brazil (N = 1,843), Taiwan (N = 539), Italy (N = 249), New Zealand (N = 317), Iran (N = 717), Cuba (N = 772), Pakistan (N = 937), Japan (N = 1,079) and France (N = 316), comprising a total 15,663 participants, the present study used the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch differential item functioning (DIF) to examine the measurement invariance of the FCV-19S across country, gender and age (children aged below 18 years, young to middle-aged adults aged between 18 and 60 years, and older people aged above 60 years). Results: The unidimensional structure of the FCV-19S was confirmed. Multigroup CFA showed that FCV-19S was partially invariant across country and fully invariant across gender and age. DIF findings were consistent with the findings from multigroup CFA. Many DIF items were displayed for country, few DIF items were displayed for age, and no DIF items were displayed for gender. Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, the FCV-19S is a good psychometric instrument to assess fear of COVID-19 during the pandemic period. Moreover, the use of FCV-19S is supported in at least ten countries with satisfactory psychometric properties.
KW - assessment
KW - COVID-19
KW - cross-cultural
KW - differential item functioning
KW - FCV-19S
KW - Fear of COVID-19
KW - Rasch analysis
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U2 - 10.1002/nop2.855
DO - 10.1002/nop2.855
M3 - Article
C2 - 33745219
AN - SCOPUS:85102774892
SN - 2054-1058
VL - 8
SP - 1892
EP - 1908
JO - Nursing Open
JF - Nursing Open
IS - 4
ER -