key: cord-0735319-2apgzgsq authors: Pakpour, Amir H.; Griffiths, Mark D.; Chang, Kun-Chia; Chen, Yu-Pin; Kuo, Yi-Jie; Lin, Chung-Ying title: Assessing the fear of COVID-19 among different populations: A response to Ransing et al. (2020) date: 2020-06-05 journal: Brain Behav Immun DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.06.006 sha: 452f38bc01f42076899ed38c683322f9893b88e9 doc_id: 735319 cord_uid: 2apgzgsq nan Ransing et al. 1 recently summarized the current available instruments for assessing mental health issues relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Among the four instruments reviewed by Ransing et al. 1 was the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) that we co-developed and rated as having the most evidence in relation to its psychometric properties. While the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) 2 Ransing et al. 1 recommend there is a need to translate, validate, and cultural-adapt the existing instruments. We would like to point out that the FCV-19S has already been validated in many languages with good psychometric properties including English 5 , Persian 6 , Bangla 7 , Italian 8 , Hebrew 9 , Arabic 10 , Russian 11 , and Turkish 12 ). We are also aware that there are other versions currently under review including versions in Spanish, Japanese, Hindi, Malaysian, and Polish. To the best of our knowledge, these research teams have also found good psychometric properties for the FCV-19S. Therefore, we are confident that the FCV-19S has already fulfilled the recommendation made by Ransing et al. 1 Moreover, the FCV-19S is arguably more theoretically grounded than other COVID-19-related instruments in that it was developed using the Protection Motivation Theory 13 , while the other three instruments do not report any theoretical framework to support their development. However, we would like to clarify the remarks made by Ransing et al. 1 regarding the unstable factor structure of the FCV-19S (i.e., a two-factor structure found in the Russian FCV-19S 11 ). In addition to the Russian version, the Hebrew FCV-19S 9 also reported a twofactor structure. However, we are of the opinion that the two-factor structure proposed by March and April 2020 from a Bangla community 7 . Utilizing CFA with the estimator of diagonally weighted least squares, we found that the FCV-19S also supported the unidimensional structure in the three vulnerable samples (Table 1) . Therefore, we believe that the FCV-19S can assess fear of COVID-19 among clinical and vulnerable samples. Can COVID-19 related mental health issues be measured?: Assessment options for mental health professionals Coronavirus Anxiety Scale: A brief mental health screener for COVID-19 related anxiety How much "Thinking" about COVID-19 is clinically dysfunctional? Development and Initial Validation of the COVID Stress Scales Functional fear predicts public health compliance in the COVID-19 pandemic The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Development and initial validation Psychometric validation of the Bangla Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch analysis Validation and psychometric evaluation of the Italian version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population Psychometric evaluation of the Arabic version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale COVID-19 fear in Eastern Europe: Validation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale Adaptation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Its association with psychological distress and life satisfaction in Turkey A Protection Motivation Theory of fear appeals and attitude change Fear of COVID-19 scale: Psychometric characteristics, reliability and validity in the Israeli population Social reaction toward the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19)