A rapid review of the development and validation of instruments specifically designed to assess or measure 'COVID-19 fear'

Abstract

Review question 1) What instruments or scales have been developed and validated for the assessment or measurement of 'COVID-19 fear'? 2) What differences exist between the underlying conceptual bases for different instruments to assess or measure COVID-19 fear? 3) What differences exist between instruments to assess or measure COVID-19 fear in terms of when, where, how and with which sample populations the instrument was validated? 4) What differences exist between instruments to assess or measure COVID-19 fear in terms of key characteristics of the instrument, including number of items, sub-scales, etc.? 5) What differences exist between the respondent characteristics that have been found to be correlated with different instruments to assess or measure COVID-19 fear? 6) What respondent behaviours and external data have instruments to assess or measure COVID-19 fear been found to be able to predict? 7) Given that multiple instruments are now available for this purpose, what factors should be taken into account in deciding which is the most suitable to be used to assess or measure COVID-19 fear in future studies?