Developing Utkan Epidemic Anxiety Scale and analysing its psychometric properties

Objectives: To develop the “Utkan epidemic anxiety scale” for measuring the anxiety levels regarding an epidemic inthe general population. Methods: Trial survey forms comprising 20 linguistically and psychometrically verified statements were distributed to1037 people; the mean age of the participants was 28.6±9.9 years (age range, 15–68 years), and 72% of the participantswere women. Structural and internal validity of the scale was assessed to determine overall validity of the scale. Factoranalysis was performed to check the structural validity, and subgroup-super group comparisons were performed todetermine internal validity. The reliability of the scale was measuring by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha (α) reliabilitycoefficient and parallel form consistency. Results: The Utkan epidemic anxiety scale was one-dimensional, consisted of 9 items, and provided explanation re garding 70.8% of the variance related to epidemic anxiety. The scale consists of points ranging from 0–36, and higherpoints indicate a higher level of epidemic anxiety. The Cronbach α reliability coefficient was 0.94, which indicated ahigh reliability of the scale. Conclusion: Results of this study showed that the “Utkan epidemic anxiety scale” provided valid and reliable measure ments of epidemic anxiety among the general population.