Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Editorial
. 2021;19(5):1903-1908.
doi: 10.1007/s11469-020-00283-3. Epub 2020 May 12.

COVID-19 Fear in Eastern Europe: Validation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale

Alexander Reznik  1 , Valentina Gritsenko  2 , Vsevolod Konstantinov  3 , Natallia Khamenka  4 , Richard Isralowitz  1
Affiliations
Editorial

COVID-19 Fear in Eastern Europe: Validation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale

Alexander Reznik et al. Int J Ment Health Addict. 2021.

Abstract

COVID-19 is a major source of fear, stress, and anxiety as well as a major factor impacting the health and wellbeing of people worldwide. The present study builds on the recently developed "Fear of COVID-19 Scale" (Ahorsu et al., In International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 10.1007/s11469-020-00270-8, 2020). The sample comprised of 850 participants, male and female young adults from Russia and Belarus. The majority of survey participants are university students and graduates. Females, students, and others from Russia report higher levels of COVID-19-related fear than those from Belarus. Respondents from Russia and Belarus report less fear than people from Iran who were surveyed earlier. The scale used for the present survey evidenced a good Cronbach's Alpha measure of internal consistency or reliability (0.809). Clearly, further research is needed across locations and over time about the nature and extent of fear caused by COVID 19. Overall, the FCV-19S appears to be a valuable and brief instrument that may provide useful information for intervention and policy purposes to migrate fear and problem behavior linked to infectious disease outbreaks.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cross-national fear; Fear; Fear assessment; Fear of COVOD-19 Scale.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution values of Fear of COVID-19 Scale by country
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Distribution values of Fear of COVID-19 Scale by gender
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ahorsu, D. K., Lin, C. Y., Imani, V., Saffari, M., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2020). The fear of COVID-19 scale: Development and initial validation. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. Retrieved from. 10.1007/s11469-020-00270-8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brief DJ, Bollinger AR, Vielhauer MJ, Berger-Greenstein JA, Morgan EE, Brady SM, et al. Understanding the interface of HIV, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use and its implications for health outcomes. AIDS Care. 2004;16(Suppl 1):S97–S120. doi: 10.1080/09540120412301315259. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Goodreads (2020). The war of the worlds quotes. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3194841-the-war-of-the-worlds.
    1. Naderifar M, Goli H, Ghaljaie F. Snowball sampling: A purposeful method of sampling in qualitative research. Strides in Development of Medical Education. 2017;14(3):e67670. doi: 10.5812/sdme.67670. - DOI
    1. Ruzek, J. (2020). Disaster response, mental health, and community resilience. Psychiatric Times, 27(1) Retrieved from https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/climate-change/disaster-response-mental....

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources