Research Snapshot: New screening tool - the Fear of COVID-19 Scale

The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has become a significant global challenge. With its extremely high infection rate and relatively high mortality rate, it has caused widespread fear around the world. Previously, researchers showed that fear of COVID-19 leads to considerable psychological and social harms, including stigmatization, discrimination, and feelings of loss.

Efforts to deal with COVID-19 mostly focus on preventing and controlling infection, developing a vaccine, and improving the effectiveness of treatment. Attempts to treat the psychological and social complications of COVID-19 have been limited. For example, there is no tool to accurately measure a person’s level of fear of COVID-19. Such a tool could be useful in the development of programs to reduce this fear and associated complications.

An international team of researchers developed such a tool and conducted a study to test its accuracy and reliability.

Read this Research Snapshot to find out about their study results.