Validation and psychometric evaluation of the Italian version of the Fear of COVID-19 scale (2020)

The advent of COVID-19 worldwide has led to consequences for people's health, both physical and psychological, such as fear and anxiety. This is the case in Italy, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic. Given the heightened fear concerning COVID-19 in Italy., the study proposed and validated the Italian version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S; see Ahorsu, D. K., Lin, C. Y., Imani, V., Saffari, M., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2020). The Fear of COVID-19 Scale: Development and Initial Validation. International journal of mental health and addiction, 1–9. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00270-8) and analyzed its psychometric properties. The sample comprised around 250 Italian participants who were administered Italian versions of the FCV-19S, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Severity Measure for Specific Phobia-Adult (SMSP-A). The dataset contains, in addition to socio-demographic information, the values collected in the sample on the seven items of the FCV-19S, translated into Italian.