Fear of COVID-19 among People Living in High Risk Zones in Sri Lanka; Preliminary Data

Abstract

People experience fear on COVID-19 in different ways including disruption of day-to-day life, somatic symptoms, anxiety and fear of loss of life. These can lead to severe mental health sequelae in some. This study assessed the validity of the Sinhala version of Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV 19S) and determined the fear of COVID-19 among people living in high risk zones in Sri Lanka. The FCV-19S was cross culturally adapted and validated using 148 subject aged 42.1±16.7 years, selected randomly from Galle. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 Items scale (DASS-21) also was used in validation. FCV-19S was re-administered among same subjects after two weeks and the psychometric properties were evaluated. The validated FCV-19S was administered among 225 people aged 36.0±13.8 living in high risk zones. FCV-19S showed a high test re-test reliability measured with intraclass correlation=0.86 (0.81-0.90). The initial Cronbach’s alpha was 0.85 but, the item 3 “My hands become clammy when I think about the coronavirus-19” did not meet satisfactory consistency criteria. After deleting the item 3, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.87. Remaining 6 items showed single factor structure with Eigen value exceeding 1, explaining 60.8% of cumulative variance, observed in Factor Analysis with Principal Component Analysis.