Journal of Tropical Diseases & Public Health

Fear among Syrians: A proposed cut off score for the arabic fear of Covid-19 scale

6^th International Conference on Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control & 5^th International conference on Pediatrics and Healthcare

May 16, 2022 | Webinar

Alma Najjar

Syrian Private University, Syria

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Trop Dis

Abstract:

Covid-19 pandemic has led to psychological health issues one of which is fear. This study validates the Arabic version of the fear of Covid-19 scale and suggests a new cutoff score to measure fear of Covid-19 among the Syrian Population. A total of 3989 participants filled an online survey consisting of socio-demographic information, the fear of Covid-19 scale, the patient health questionnaire 9-item, and the generalized anxiety disorder 7-item. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to define cutoff scores for the fear of Covid-19 scale in relation to generalized anxiety disorder 7-item and the patient health questionnaire 9-item. The Cronbach’s α value of the Arabic fear of Covid-19 scale was 0.896, revealing good stability and internal consistency. The inter-item correlations were between [0.420 – 0.868] and the corrected item-total correlations were between [0.614 – 0.768]. A cutoff point of 17.5 was deduced from the analysis. According to the deduced cutoff point, 2111(52.9%) were categorized as extreme fear cases. This cutoff score deduced from this study can be used for screening purposes to distinguish community members that may be prone to developing extreme fear of Covid-19. Therefore, early preventive and supportive measures can then be delivered.

Biography :

Alma Najjar is currently a final year medical student studying at the faculty of Medicine, Syrian Private University, Damascus, Syria. She has published multiple papers and has been involved in multiple Syrian research projects.