COVID-19 Fear Among Pakistanis: Psychometric Evaluation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale Using Item Response Theory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Irfan Ullah; Muhammad Junaid Tahir; Sajjad Ali; Rabia Waseem; Mark D Griffiths; Mohammed A Mamun; Chung-Ying Lin; Amir H Pakpour

doi:10.1007/s11469-021-00656-2

COVID-19 Fear Among Pakistanis: Psychometric Evaluation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale Using Item Response Theory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Int J Ment Health Addict. 2023;21(2):1240-1255. doi: 10.1007/s11469-021-00656-2. Epub 2021 Nov 29.

Authors

Irfan Ullah¹, Muhammad Junaid Tahir², Sajjad Ali³, Rabia Waseem⁴, Mark D Griffiths⁵, Mohammed A Mamun^{6

7}, Chung-Ying Lin⁸, Amir H Pakpour⁹

Affiliations

¹ Kabir Medical College, Gandhara University, Peshawar, Pakistan.
² Ameer-Ud-Din Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan.
³ Ziauddin University, Karachi, Pakistan.
⁴ Karachi Medical and Dental College, Karachi, Pakistan.
⁵ International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
⁶ CHINTA Research Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
⁷ Department of Public Health and Informatics, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
⁸ Institute of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁹ Department of Nursing, School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden.

Abstract

The Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) assesses the fear of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and has been translated and validated into over 20 languages. The present study conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT) analyses on the FCV-19S among a sample of 937 Pakistani adults (mean [SD] age of 25.83 [11.80] years; 537 [57.3%] females). The CFA and IRT confirmed the unidimensionality of the FCV-19S. The Likert-type scale used in the FCV-19S was supported by the proper threshold orderings. Additionally, no DIF contrast had an absolute value larger than 0.5 regarding the participants' characteristics of gender, age, living status, and education in the IRT findings. The FCV-19S was found to be valid and reliable with strong psychometric properties among the Pakistani adult population.

Keywords: COVID-19; FCV-19S Urdu validation; Fear; Fear of COVID-19 Scale; Pakistani population.