Development and validation of a quantitative instrument for measuring temporal and social disorientation in the Covid-19 crisis

PLoS One. 2022 Nov 17;17(11):e0264604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264604. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

We developed a quantitative Instrument for measuring Temporal and Social Disorientation (ITSD), aimed at major crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Disorientation has been identified as one of the central elements of the psychological impact of the Covid-19 era on the general public, but so far, the question has only been approached qualitatively. This paper offers an empirical, quantitative approach to the multi-faceted disorientation of the Covid-19 pandemic by operationalising the issue with the help of the ITSD. The ITSD was developed through multiple stages involving a preliminary open-ended questionnaire followed by a coder-based thematic analysis. This paper establishes the reliability and validity of the resulting ITSD using a 3-step validation process on a sample size of 3306.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • Confusion
  • Humans
  • Pandemics
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium. This work was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under Grant Agreement Numbers ANR-17-EURE-0017 (FrontCog) and RA-COVID-19 V11 (DISCovid). BP benefited from a grant from RATP Group for a research project on temporal disorientation. PFV benefited from a postdoctoral fellowship from the Irish Research Council (GOIPD/2021/570). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.