COVID-19 Life Events-Anxiety Inventory (C-19LAI): development, reliability, and validity study on Egyptian population

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 Life Events-Anxiety Inventory (C-19LAI) is a newly developed tool and the only Arabic tool for assessing and measuring anxiety related to different life events during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study was to test the validity and reliability of this newly designed tool. We used a cross sectional validation multiphasic study and applied the tool on 500 subjects together with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). RESULTS: The COVID-19 Life Events-Anxiety Inventory (C-19LAI) showed validity of 73.6% and sensitivity of 85.2%, with acceptable reliability of α = 0.815 and 0.947, respectively. The Life Events Scale and Anxiety Scale of the C-19LAI correlated significantly (p ≤ 0.01) with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (r = 0.289 and r = 0.407, respectively). CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 Life Events-Anxiety Inventory (C-19LAI) Scale is a reliable and valid scale that can measure anxiety and events related to anxiety during the COVID 19 pandemic. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43045-021-00101-z.