Fear of Returning to Face-to-Face Classes in Times of COVID-19: A Cross-Country Comparison

This study aimed to investigate the fear of COVID-19 among university students from various countries in the context of face-to-face classes. This is a cross-sectional study, with a sample of 1,205 university students from several European (Portugal, France and England) and Latin American (Brazil and Paraguay) countries. An online survey was carried out including sociodemographic questions about COVID-19, type of university, face-to-face classes and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale for Face-to-Face Learning (FCV-19S-FL). Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, ANOVA and multiple linear regression were used for data analysis. The results obtained identified a set of fear predictor variables (total, emotional and cognitive), with emphasis on females, first- and second-year students, attendance of courses not related to Health Sciences, preference for a distance learning model, comorbidities among family members or friends, and no previous COVID-19 infection. The comparative study between countries showed that university students in Brazil showed higher levels of all types of fear, statistically significant when compared to the other countries studied, with the exception of England. The results obtained show the impacts and management of the pandemic at the resumption of face-to-face classes after a period of exclusively distance learning, identifying university students at greater risk of mental health.