Psychometric Properties of Coronavirus Anxiety Scale in Iranian Population

One of the most common mental health-related issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic is high levels of distress and anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological well being and conservation of the general population are utterly significant components of facing COVID-19 pandemic. It seems that despite the availability of highly standardized tools to investigate COVID19-related anxiety, the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) can be helpful in different populations due to its short design.

The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the Persian (Iranian) version of the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (P-CAS).

In this web-based cross-sectional study, 305 individuals (184 females vs. 121 males) participated. All participants were evaluated by five questionnaires, including the P-CAS, COVID Stress Scales (CSS), the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21), Whiteley Index (WI), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Cronbach’s alpha, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and correlation coefficient were used for data analysis using SPSS 23 and AMOS-23 software.

The results of CFA demonstrated that the factor structure of the P-CAS was good, and the scale had an appropriate internal consistency (α= 0.80). A satisfactory convergent validity was shown due to positive correlations of the P-CAS with the related scales. Test-retest reliability of P-CAS was also satisfactory (ICC = 0.95).

According to our results, the P-CAS is a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate the severity of dysfunctional anxiety due to COVID-19 pandemic.