Fear of COVID-19 Scale Shows Reliable, Sex-Invariant Measurement in Brazilian Adolescents

A Brazilian version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) has been validated for use among high-school adolescents in Brazil, according to a study published in BMC Psychology. The research, carried out by Alexandre Aparecido de Almeida, Ana Cláudia Teixeira-Silva and Marco Aurélio Oliveira, set out to verify the psychometric properties of the scale and to test whether it measures the same underlying construct in boys and girls. The work addresses a documented gap: although fear, depression and anxiety emerged as the most salient psychological responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, valid instruments for assessing fear specifically among Brazilian adolescents have been scarce.

The study included 543 Brazilian adolescents. To examine the scale's structure, the team applied Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using a Diagonally Weighted Least Squares estimator, a statistical approach suited to ordinal response data of the kind produced by Likert-type questionnaires. The analysis supported a unidimensional structure, meaning that the items of the FCV-19S load onto a single underlying factor of fear of COVID-19 rather than splitting into separate subdimensions.

Internal consistency, estimated with McDonald's omega, was high at 0.901, indicating that the items measure the construct coherently in this age group. The researchers addressed this with multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis comparing girls and boys. The results showed that the FCV-19S was fully invariant across biological sex, meaning that the scale's factor structure, item loadings and thresholds held equally for both groups.

Scores on the scale can therefore be meaningfully compared between male and female adolescents in this sample. To evaluate concurrent validity, the authors correlated FCV-19S factorial scores with the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21). All associations were significant and positive: rs = 0.236 for the depression subscale, rs = 0.296 for anxiety, rs = 0.312 for stress, and rs = 0.302 for the total DASS-21 score.

These correlations support the scale's concurrent validity, showing that fear of COVID-19 as measured by the instrument is associated with depression, anxiety and stress in the expected direction. The team also examined construct validity against an external variable: the social distancing index. Fear scores showed a significant positive association with this index (rs = 0.208).

The authors describe this as preliminary construct validity based on associations with external variables, a cautious characterization given the correlational design, which establishes association rather than causation. Taken together, the validity and reliability analyses indicate that the scale has a stable one-factor structure in this population. The authors conclude that the FCV-19S is a reliable psychometric instrument for assessing fear of COVID-19 in Brazilian adolescents.

For researchers, the findings mean that scores from this Brazilian version can be interpreted with confidence in this age group, and that male and female adolescents can be compared directly on the same measurement scale. The study arrives in the context of what the authors describe as an unprecedented psychological crisis accompanying the global public health emergency, with a documented surge in negative psychiatric outcomes during the outbreak. By establishing unidimensionality, internal consistency, sex invariance and significant associations with depression, anxiety, stress and the social distancing index, the study supplies that prerequisite for Brazilian high-school students.

The published report is limited to the analyses described: a single-sample CFA, multigroup invariance testing across biological sex, and Spearman correlations with the DASS-21 and the social distancing index. Within those bounds, the evidence supports the FCV-19S as a sound, sex-invariant measure of pandemic-related fear in Brazilian adolescents.

Subject of Research: Psychometric validation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale in Brazilian high-school adolescents

Article Title: Psychometric properties, construct validity and invariance across sexes of the fear of COVID-19 scale in Brazilian high-school adolescents

Article References: de Almeida, A. A., Teixeira-Silva, A. C., & Oliveira, M. A. (2026). Psychometric properties, construct validity and invariance across sexes of the fear of COVID-19 scale in Brazilian high-school adolescents. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05484-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05484-4

Keywords: psychometrics, fear of COVID-19 scale, adolescents, Brazil, confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance, DASS-21, BMC Psychology, Psychometric, properties, construct, validity