The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Its Structure and Measurement Invariance Across 48 Countries

Sawicki A.J. Żemojtel-Piotrowska M. Balcerowska J.M. Sawicka M.J. Piotrowski J. Sedikides C. Jonason P.K. Maltby J. Adamovic M. Agada A.M.D. Ahmed O. Al-Shawaf L. Appiah S.C.Y. Ardi R. Babakr Z.H. Bălţătescu S. Bonato M. Cowden R.G. Chobthamkit P. De Pretto L. Gouveia V.V. Haretche C. Iliško D. Aruta J.J.B. Jia F. Jovanovic V. Jukic T. Kamble S.V. Khachatryan N. Klicperova-Baker M. Koralov M. Kovacs M. Kretchner M. Larzabal Fernandez A. Liik K. Malik N.I. Malysheva K. Moon C. Muehlbacher S. Nartova-Bochaver S. Torres-Marín J. Özsoy E. Park J. Piccinelli E. Ramos-Diaz J. OgnjenRidic Samekin A. Starc A. Kiêu T.T.T. Tomsik R. Umeh C.S. EduardoWills-Herrera Wlodarczyk A. Vally Z. Zand S.
1 January 2022 American Psychological Association

Psychological Assessment
2022 #34 Issue 3 294 - 310 pp.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a source of fear around the world. We asked whether the measurement of this fear is trustworthy and comparable across countries. In particular, we explored the measurement invariance and cross-cultural replicability of the widely used Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), testing community samples from 48 countries (N = 14,558). The findings indicate that the FCV-19S has a somewhat problematic structure, yet the one-factor solution is replicable across cultural contexts and could be used in studies that compare people who vary on gender and educational level. The validity of the scale is supported by a consistent pattern of positive correlations with perceived stress and general anxiety. However, given the unclear structure of the FCV-19S, we recommend using latent factor scores, instead of raw scores, especially in cross-cultural comparisons.

Coronavirus , Cross-cultural studies , Fear of covid , Measurement invariance

Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи

Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk, Poland
Institute of Psychology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland
Department of Clinical, Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Warmia and Mazury, Poland
School of Psychology, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, University of Leicester, United Kingdom
Department of Management and International Business, Auckland Business School, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Clinique Biasa, Togo
Department of Psychology, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, United States
Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
Department of Psychology, Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia
Department of Psychology, Soran University, Iraq
Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Oradea, Romania
Human Flourishing Program, Harvard University, United States
Department of Psychology, Thammasat University, Thailand
Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leeds Trinity University, United Kingdom
Department of Psychology, Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil
Institute of Political Science, Universidad de la República, Uruguay
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Daugavpils University, Latvia
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, De La Salle University, Philippines
Department of Psychology, Seton Hall University, United States
Department of Psychology, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
Faculty of Medicine, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Croatia
Department of Psychology, Karnatak University, India
Department of Personality Psychology, Yerevan State University, Armenia
Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic
Department of cognitive science and psychology, New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria
Institute of Intercultural Psychology and Education, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University, Israel
Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador-Ambato, Ecuador
School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Estonia
Department of Psychology, University of Sargodha, Pakistan
Faculty of Psychology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
Department of Psychology, School of Social Science, Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics, Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Austria
Department of Psychology, HSE University, Russian Federation
Department of Research Methods in Behavioral Sciences, University of Granada, Spain
Sakarya Business School, Sakarya University, Turkey
NUCB Business School, Japan
Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal
Centre for Interdisciplinary Science and Society Studies, Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades, Peru
Faculty of Business and Administration, International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
School of Liberal Arts, M. Narikbayev KAZGUU University, Kazakhstan
Department of Public Health, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Department of Psychology, HoChiMinh City University of Education, Viet Nam
Research Institute for Child Psychology and Pathopsychology, Slovakia
Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Management School, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Department of Psychology, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Chile
Department of Clinical Psychology, United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Institute of Psychology
Institute of Psychology
Department of Clinical
School of Psychology
Department of General Psychology
Department of Neuroscience
Department of Management and International Business
Clinique Biasa
Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Department of Sociology and Social Work
Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Department of Sociology and Social Work
Human Flourishing Program
Department of Psychology
Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Department of Psychology
Institute of Political Science
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology
Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Faculty of Medicine
Department of Psychology
Department of Personality Psychology
Institute of Psychology
Department of cognitive science and psychology
Institute of Intercultural Psychology and Education
Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology
Escuela de Psicología
School of Natural Sciences and Health
Department of Psychology
Faculty of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics
Department of Psychology
Department of Research Methods in Behavioral Sciences
Sakarya Business School
NUCB Business School
Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social
Centre for Interdisciplinary Science and Society Studies
Faculty of Business and Administration
School of Liberal Arts
Department of Public Health
Department of Psychology
Research Institute for Child Psychology and Pathopsychology
Department of Psychiatry
Management School
Department of Psychology
Department of Clinical Psychology
Department of Psychology

10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель

Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026