ABSTRACT
Objective: Health anxiety can be a risk factor for mental health and well-being. People can experience higher levels of health anxiety during pandemic outbreaks because such pandemic outbreaks can cause additional stress and threats. In this sense, people can be more vulnerable to health anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak. To better understand and overcome health anxiety, it is important to examine factors that affect health anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study aimed to examine the effects of age, gender, perceived risk, exposure to media, depression, anxiety, and stress on health anxiety during the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey.Materials and Method: The participants included 1473 adults and the data were collected via an online tool. The demographic questions, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, and the Short Health Anxiety Scale were used to collect data. Multiple linear regression analysis was implemented to analyze the data using R program. Results: The results showed that anxiety was the strongest positive predictor of health anxiety, following stress, TV News and social media, depression, and risk perception. Age and gender were not found to be significant predictors.Conclusions: This study showed that the significant predictors of health anxiety can escalate health anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak. The results and limitations are discussed along with implications for future research and intervention and prevention planning. © 2021 Sociedad Española para el Estudio de la Ansiedad y el Estrés - SEAS. Colegio de la Psicología de Madrid. Todos los derechos reservados.
ABSTRACT
Understanding people's psychological reactions to the pandemic is important in controlling the spread of disease and preventing psychological disorders associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This study focuses on anxiety as a psychological reaction to the coronavirus pandemic. It aims to produce a Turkish adaptation of the Coronavirus Anxiety Inventory (CAI;Wheaton, Ward, Sanders, Keel, & van Meter, 2020) and examine its reliability and validity. The study participants consisted of 428 undergraduate students (335 females and 93 males) aged between 18 and 32 years. The researchers used Mplus and K programs for data analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to test the construct validity of the Turkish adaptation. Moreover, using correlation analysis. the researchers examined the relationship between CAI and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated to test the reliability of the scale. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the single-factor structure of the CAI with nine items had adequate lit indices. that is, it showed good features in terms of measuring coronavirus-related anxiety. Item factor loadings changed between 0.56 and 0.81. and Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient was 0.84. A statistically significant difference was found between the scores of the upper and lower 27% groups. Furthermore, statistically significant positive relationships between CAI and DASS were noted. Consequently. this study provides a number of evidences that the Turkish adaptation of CAI with nine items based on a seven-point Likert-type scale was a reliable and valid instrument for measuring coronavirus-related anxiety in undergraduate students. This research uses CAI to determine university students' anxiety levels amid the CONID-19 pandemic. The researchers suggest that particular attention should be given to a balanced distribution in terms of gender and age in future studies.