AUTHOR=Cottin Marianne , Hernández Cristóbal , Núñez Catalina , Labbé Nicolás , Quevedo Yamil , Davanzo Antonella , Behn Alex 

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

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.590283

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.590283

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Uncertainty, loneliness, vulnerability, economic insecurity, fear of infection, and facing death for ourselves or our loved ones are among the distinct sources of stress that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. These sources of distress, and particularly fear, are 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 (FIVE) and tested its predictive value for future development of distress. A sample of 174 Chilean adult participants was collected in the context of a broader intensive longitudinal study of the effects of the pandemic on mental health and psychosocial outcomes. Different Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were calculated to evaluate the preliminary proposed structure for the instrument. Complementary, we conducted a content analysis 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 instrument showed good reliability through all subscales both by its internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .814 to .913, and with test-retest correlations ranging from .715 to .804. Regarding its convergent validity, individuals who scored higher in fears tended to also score higher in depressive and post-traumatic stress symptoms at baseline. Furthermore, higher fears at baseline predicted a higher score in post-traumatic stress symptomatology seven days later. These results provide evidence for the validity, reliability, and predictive performance of the FIVE. As the FIVE is a free and multidimensional scale not circumscribed to COVID-19, it might work as a step towards 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.