The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: A Case of a Filipino Adaptation and Validation Study

• Main Authors: Basileyo, Alexie, Erasga, Dennis
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2024
• Subjects: adaptation; COVID-19; F-FCV-19S; Filipino; translation
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/apssr/vol24/iss2/7; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/apssr/article/1537/viewcontent/RA_206.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

As a significant international health emergency, COVID-19, formerly known as 2019-nCov and later termed SARS-Cov-2 or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, has introduced a myriad of behavioral, emotional, and social problems, most notably the fear of the virus itself. In response, a team of researchers developed a scale that measures COVID-19-related fear in 2020. Today, however, the scale has not been fully tested among the Filipino population in general. Hence, the present research addressed the situation by adapting and validating the original scale. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and other relevant reliability analyses were employed to assess the scale’s reliability and factor structure during the adaptation process, and a variety of local terms were used to describe the fear. The study employed convenience sampling to include 498 Filipino participants. Findings revealed excellent internal consistency at 0.85, whereas the CFA factor loadings were between 0.41 and 0.86, which validated the unidimensional nature of the scale. The Filipino adaptation of the scale in this study is regarded as reliable and valid for Filipinos. Moreover, using the scale may help develop ways to prevent and treat related psychological conditions and assist mental health care professionals in researching related COVID-19 impacts in the Philippines.