The COVID Psychosocial Impacts Scale: A Reliable and Valid Tool to Examine the Psychosocial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sandila Tanveer; Philip J Schluter; Ben Beaglehole; Richard J Porter; Joseph Boden; Ruqayya Sulaiman-Hill; Damian Scarf; Shaystah Dean; Fatima Assad; Mahammad Abul Hasnat; Caroline Bell

doi:10.3390/ijerph20115990

The COVID Psychosocial Impacts Scale: A Reliable and Valid Tool to Examine the Psychosocial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 May 29;20(11):5990. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20115990.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychological Medicine, Christchurch Campus, University of Otago, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand.
² Te Kaupeka Oranga|Faculty of Health, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha|University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand.
³ School of Clinical Medicine, Primary Care Clinical Unit, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand.
⁵ Department of Psychological Medicine, Wellington Campus, University of Otago, Wellington 6021, New Zealand.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry, HITEC Institute of Medical Sciences, Taxila 47078, Pakistan.
⁷ Department of Education, Milestone College, Dhaka 1230, Bangladesh.

Abstract

This paper reports on the development and validation of the COVID Psychosocial Impacts Scale (CPIS), a self-report measure that comprehensively examines both positive and negative psychosocial impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first part of the program of work in which the CPIS was administered and compared with a measure of psychological distress (Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, K-10) and wellbeing (World Health Organization Well-Being Index, WHO-5). The data were obtained online in 2020 and 2022 at two distinct time points to capture different exposures to the pandemic in the New Zealand population to a non-representative sample of 663 and 687 adults, respectively. Two hundred seventy-one participants took part in both surveys. Findings indicate a unidimensional structure within CPIS subscales and inter-relatedness among CPIS stress-related subscales. The scatter plots and correlation matrix indicate CPIS having a positive moderate correlation with K10 and a negative moderate correlation with WHO-5, indicative of construct validity. The paper outlines contextual factors surrounding CPIS development and makes suggestions for future iterations of CPIS. Further work will examine its psychometric properties across cultures.

Keywords: COVID-19; psychological distress; psychosocial impacts; reliability; validity; wellbeing.

MeSH terms

Adult
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Humans
Pandemics
Self Report
Stress, Psychological / epidemiology
Stress, Psychological / psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The authors declare that this study received no external funding. No funder was involved in the study design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.