Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Development and criterion validity of the COVID-19 anxiety and fear assessment scale: a cross sectional study

2021; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 104; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/00368504211050291

2047-7163

Juan Gómez‐Salgado, Regina Allande‐Cussó, Carmen Rodríguez-Domínguez, Sara Domínguez‐Salas, Selena Camacho-Martín, Adolfo Romero Ruiz, Carlos Ruiz‐Frutos,

Long-Term Effects of COVID-19

The emergence of the new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes COVID-19 disease, has been a major public health challenge and an increase in the feeling of uncertainty of the population, who is also experiencing an increase in levels of anxiety and fear regarding the COVID-19 disease.The objective of the study was the construct and criterion validation of the Escala de evaluación de la Ansiedad y MIedo a COVID-19 (AMICO, for its acronym in Spanish) to measure both constructs in the general Spanish population.Descriptive study of psychometric validation. A field study was carried out to execute univariate and bivariate analyses, in addition to the exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis of the scale. For the criteria validity study, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and sensitivity and specificity values were calculated.The study sample was composed of 1036 subjects over 18 years of age, who resided in Spain, where 56.3% were women with a mean age of 48.11 years (SD = 15.13). The study of construct validity reported two factors and 16 items, with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.92. The scale was concurrently valid with the used gold standard and obtained sensitivity values of 90.48% and specificity values of 76%.The AMICO scale is valid and reliable for assessing the level of anxiety and fear of COVID-19 in the adult Spanish population and is highly sensitive.