Emotional fear of COVID-19, but not physiological expressions of fear, explains variability in COVID-19's impact on individuals' lives

Bryant M Stone; Vanessa Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100479

Emotional fear of COVID-19, but not physiological expressions of fear, explains variability in COVID-19's impact on individuals' lives

J Affect Disord Rep. 2023 Jan:11:100479. doi: 10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100479. Epub 2023 Jan 5.

Authors

Bryant M Stone^{1

2}, Vanessa Wang²

Affiliations

¹ College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, 67 President Street, Charleston, SC 29425, USA.
² School of Psychological & Behavioral Sciences, Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University, 1125 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and robust impact on individuals' lives and has particularly negatively affected individuals' experiences with fear of catching COVID-19. To measure this fear, researchers created the unidimensional Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S). However, some exploratory factor analysis studies suggested the presence of two factors, which are 1) emotional fear and 2) physiological expressions of fear. In the current exploratory study, we aimed to confirm this factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis and to examine how these two new factors of the FCV-19S explain variability in the impacts of COVID-19 on nine life domains (i.e., finances, loved ones, job, safety, school, mental health, physical health, social activities, and quality of life). Participants were undergraduate students (n = 224) from a Midwestern University (White: 60.7%; Male: 48.0%) who participated in the study for course credit. The results revealed that the two-factor model had an excellent fit for the FCV-19S, both subscales had excellent psychometric properties, and the emotional fear subscale significantly explained variability in all nine life domains (7% to 54%). However, the physiological fear subscale only significantly explained variability in the physical health domain along with emotional fear (28%). The findings suggested that emotional fear of COVID-19 may explain more variability in the impact of COVID-19 across life domains, while physiological fear may only explain the effects of COVID-19 on physical health. We further discussed implications, limitations, and future directions.

Keywords: CFA, confirmatory factor analysis; CFI, Comparative Fit Index; CIDS, Coronavirus Impact Domains Scale; COVID-19; COVID-19 impact; COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019; EFA, exploratory factor analysis; FCV-19S; FCV-19S, Fear of COVID-19 Scale; Factor analysis; Fear of COVID-19; Fear of COVID-19 Scale; M, Mean; RMSEA, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; SD, standard deviation; SE, standard error; SRMR, Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual.