The COVID Stress Scales

Danger. Deprivation. Xenophobia. Contamination. These are some of the fears related to COVID-19. Scores ofCOVID questionnaires have popped up recently to assess fear, anxiety, stress, and depression related to the novel coronavirus and its massive disruption to daily life. Most are freely available for use as research tools, but few have been validated and peer reviewed.The COVID Stress Scales (CSS) developed byTaylor and colleagues (2020) were recently published in theJournal of Anxiety Disorders. The authors propose a new COVID Stress Syndrome, and present evidence that the CSS subscales are intercorrelated (which is suggestive of a “coherent” condition).To develop the CSS, representative samples of people in Canada (n=3,479) and the US (n=3,375) completed a 58-item survey onQualtrics. Factor analysis identified five subscales...COVID danger and contamination fearsCOVID fears about economic consequencesCOVID xenophobiaCOVID compulsive checking and reassurance seekingCOVID traumatic stress symptoms...and limited the questionnaire to 36 items. I ' ll note that “fears about economic consequences” were restricted to a lack of supplies at grocery stores and pharmacies, rather than fears of crushing debt, eviction, hunger, and homelessness because of unemployment.One can view this new syndrome as a context-related extension of OCD contamination fears, compulsive checking, andhealth anxiety (preoccupation with the possibility of serious illness). Indeed, convergent validit...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Source Type: blogs