Assessing Validity and Reliability of the Persian Version of Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) Among Healthcare Workers

Abstract

Background: There is a limited number of psychometric tools for measuring the psychological impacts of COVID-19 on healthcare workers (HCWs). The Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) is a brief questionnaire that identifies dysfunctional anxiety induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The authors translated the CAS into Persian and assessed its validity and reliability among Iranian HCWs. First, they calculated the content validity index (CVI) and the content validity ratio (CVR) based on six psychiatrists’ assessments. Then, 10 medical interns modified the questionnaire for face validity. In addition, 30 psychiatric residents contributed to the test-retest method to evaluate the intergroup correlation coefficient (ICC). Finally, they examined confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for construct validity, based on the responses of participants to the scale, and they used Cronbach's alpha coefficient to assess the internal consistency. Results: 185 healthcare workers filled out the Persian version of the CAS. In the assessment of the content validity, all five questions of the CAS had CVI > 0.79 and CVR > 0.99, and all were statistically approved. The construct validity showed that the scale is one-dimensional. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s α= 0.878) and test-retest stability (ICC= 0.931) were accepted. Conclusions: After the localization of the questionnaire, no items were added or subtracted. The CAS presented adequate reliability and validity among Iranian HCWs. Therefore, future epidemiologic studies can consider it a valid scale for HCWs.