Journal article
Demographic and health factors associated with pandemic anxiety in the context of COVID‐19
- Abstract:
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Objectives:
The mental health consequences of COVID‐19 are predicted to have a disproportionate impact on certain groups. We aimed to develop a brief measure, the Pandemic Anxiety Scale, to capture the specific aspects of the pandemic that are provoking anxiety, and explore how these vary by health and demographic factors.
Design:
Data were from a convenience sample of parents (N = 4,793) and adolescents (N = 698) recruited in the first 6 weeks of lockdown.
Methods:
Factor analytic and IRT methods were used to validate the new measure in both parent and adolescent samples. Associations between scores on the new measure and age, gender, household income, and physical health status were explored using structural equation modelling (SEM).
Results:
Two factors were identified in both samples: disease anxiety (e.g., catching, transmitting the virus) and consequence anxiety (e.g., impact on economic prospects); and unique associations with health and demographic factors were observed.
Conclusions:
Anxieties due to the COVID‐19 are multifaceted, and the PAS is a short, reliable, and valid measure of these concerns. These anxieties are differentially associated with demographic, social, and health factors, which should be considered when developing strategies to mitigate the mental health impact of the pandemic.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 533.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1111/bjhp.12470
Authors
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Journal:
- British Journal of Health Psychology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 25
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 934-944
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2020-08-29
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-08-03
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2044-8287
- ISSN:
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1359-107X
- Pmid:
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32860334
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1129321
- Local pid:
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pubs:1129321
- Deposit date:
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2020-09-17
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- McElroy et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © 2020 The Authors. British Journal of Health Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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