Cargando…

“What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Distinct sources of stress have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, fear is expected to generate significant psychological burden on individuals and influence on either unsafe behavior that may hinder recovery efforts or virus-mitigating behaviors. However, little is known about the...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Cottin, Marianne, Hernández, Cristóbal, Núñez, Catalina, Labbé, Nicolás, Quevedo, Yamil, Davanzo, Antonella, Behn, Alex
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990903/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33776833
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.590283
_version_ 1783669146777550848
author Cottin, Marianne
Hernández, Cristóbal
Núñez, Catalina
Labbé, Nicolás
Quevedo, Yamil
Davanzo, Antonella
Behn, Alex
author_facet Cottin, Marianne
Hernández, Cristóbal
Núñez, Catalina
Labbé, Nicolás
Quevedo, Yamil
Davanzo, Antonella
Behn, Alex
author_sort Cottin, Marianne
collection PubMed
description Distinct sources of stress have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, fear is expected to generate significant psychological burden on individuals and influence on either unsafe behavior that may hinder recovery efforts or virus-mitigating behaviors. However, little is known about the properties of measures to capture them in research and clinical settings. To resolve this gap, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a novel measure of fear of illness and viruses and tested its predictive value for future development of distress. We extracted a random sample of 450 Chilean adult participants from a large cross-sectional survey panel and invited to participate in this intensive longitudinal study for 35 days. Of these, 163 ended up enrolling in the study after the demanding nature of the measurement schedule was clearly explained to them. For this final sample, we calculated different Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) to evaluate the preliminary proposed structure for the instrument. Complementarily, we conducted a content analysis of the items to qualitatively extract its latent structure, which was also subject to empirical test via CFA. Results indicated that the original structure did not fit the data well; however, the new proposed structure based on the content analysis did. Overall, the modified instrument showed good reliability through all subscales both by its internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.814 to 0.913, and with test–retest correlations ranging from 0.715 to 0.804. Regarding its convergent validity, individuals who scored higher in fears tended to also score higher in depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms at baseline. Furthermore, higher fears at baseline predicted a higher score in posttraumatic stress symptomatology 7 days later. These results provide evidence for the validity, reliability, and predictive performance of the scale. As the scale is free and multidimensional potentially not circumscribed to COVID-19, it might work as a step toward understanding the psychological impact of current and future pandemics, or further life-threatening health situations of similar characteristics. Limitations, practical implications, and future directions for research are discussed.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7990903
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-79909032021-03-26 “What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic Cottin, Marianne Hernández, Cristóbal Núñez, Catalina Labbé, Nicolás Quevedo, Yamil Davanzo, Antonella Behn, Alex Front Psychol Psychology Distinct sources of stress have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, fear is expected to generate significant psychological burden on individuals and influence on either unsafe behavior that may hinder recovery efforts or virus-mitigating behaviors. However, little is known about the properties of measures to capture them in research and clinical settings. To resolve this gap, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a novel measure of fear of illness and viruses and tested its predictive value for future development of distress. We extracted a random sample of 450 Chilean adult participants from a large cross-sectional survey panel and invited to participate in this intensive longitudinal study for 35 days. Of these, 163 ended up enrolling in the study after the demanding nature of the measurement schedule was clearly explained to them. For this final sample, we calculated different Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) to evaluate the preliminary proposed structure for the instrument. Complementarily, we conducted a content analysis of the items to qualitatively extract its latent structure, which was also subject to empirical test via CFA. Results indicated that the original structure did not fit the data well; however, the new proposed structure based on the content analysis did. Overall, the modified instrument showed good reliability through all subscales both by its internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.814 to 0.913, and with test–retest correlations ranging from 0.715 to 0.804. Regarding its convergent validity, individuals who scored higher in fears tended to also score higher in depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms at baseline. Furthermore, higher fears at baseline predicted a higher score in posttraumatic stress symptomatology 7 days later. These results provide evidence for the validity, reliability, and predictive performance of the scale. As the scale is free and multidimensional potentially not circumscribed to COVID-19, it might work as a step toward understanding the psychological impact of current and future pandemics, or further life-threatening health situations of similar characteristics. Limitations, practical implications, and future directions for research are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7990903/ /pubmed/33776833 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.590283 Text en Copyright © 2021 Cottin, Hernández, Núñez, Labbé, Quevedo, Davanzo and Behn. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Cottin, Marianne
Hernández, Cristóbal
Núñez, Catalina
Labbé, Nicolás
Quevedo, Yamil
Davanzo, Antonella
Behn, Alex
“What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title “What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full “What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr “What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed “What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short “What If We Get Sick?”: Spanish Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of Illness and Virus Evaluation Scale in a Non-clinical Sample Exposed to the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort “what if we get sick?”: spanish adaptation and validation of the fear of illness and virus evaluation scale in a non-clinical sample exposed to the covid-19 pandemic
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990903/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33776833
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.590283
work_keys_str_mv AT cottinmarianne whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic
AT hernandezcristobal whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic
AT nunezcatalina whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic
AT labbenicolas whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic
AT quevedoyamil whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic
AT davanzoantonella whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic
AT behnalex whatifwegetsickspanishadaptationandvalidationofthefearofillnessandvirusevaluationscaleinanonclinicalsampleexposedtothecovid19pandemic