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?:abstract
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Background: Safeguarding the psychological well-being of the public is also an integral component of fighting COVID-19. However, there is limited availability of psychometric measures to document COVID-19-related anxiety among the general public. Objectives: This study was aimed at developing a validated scale to measure COVID-19-related anxiety. Methods: Three hundred and seven subjects from different gender, educational categories participated in the study. Exploratory factor analysis for the determination of factor structure, Pearson\'s correlation test, and Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA were employed in data analysis using SPSS version 20 software. Results: COVID-19 Anxiety Scale (CAS) demonstrated a two-component structure identified as: \'fear of social interaction;\' \'illness anxiety.\' The final scale with seven items demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach\'s Alpha 0.736). CAS exhibited good construct validity showing moderately negative correlation (Pearson\'s r = -0.417) with the self-rated mental health and resulted in higher scores among individuals with lower educational qualification (Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA χ2 [2, 303] = 38.01; P = 0.001). Conclusion: CAS is a rapidly administrable, valid, and reliable tool that can be used to measure COVID-19-related anxiety among the Indian population.
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