The psychometric properties and gender invariance of the Italian version of the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Questionnaire (I-PVDQ) during the COVID-19 pandemic

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

The Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Questionnaire (PVDQ) measures beliefs associated with personal susceptibility to infectious diseases and behaviors or perceptions in the presence of potential risk of pathogen transmission. Given the onset of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 global pandemic, otherwise known as the COVID-19 pandemic, the construct being measured may function differently based on affective, behavioral, and cognitive changes along with the need to change norms and lifestyles in a global context. The present study aims to test the psychometric properties and the gender invariance of the Italian adaptation of the PVDQ to confirm that the scale can be used with Italian-speaking people, and that it functions effectively during a pandemic.

Methods

A total of 509 participants filled out an online questionnaire including the Italian version of the I-PVDQ (I-PVDQ) and several measures of psychological constructs. Reliability and factor analyses (single and multigroup) were conducted. Bayesian correlation tests and Bayesian independent sample t-tests were used to assess the validity of I-PVDQ.

Results

Exploratory factor analysis supported the two-factor structure of the I-PVDQ, and factor loadings loaded appropriately onto perceived infectability (PI) and germ aversion (GA). In terms of invariance, the scale showed configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance across genders. Decisive evidence in favor of correlation with the measure of COVID-19 related fears for both PI and GA was found. There was strong evidence for observed correlations with COVID-19 related constructs such as intolerance to uncertainty, psychological inflexibility, resilience, stress, and anxiety. Women showed higher GA than men, while there were no gender differences in PI.

Conclusions

Taken together, these results suggest that the I-PVDQ confirms the psychometric properties of the original version and that can be used to detect PVD when it is affected by environmental circumstances since its functioning is preserved during a pandemic.

Related collections

Most cited references 120

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China

Cuiyan Wang, Riyu Pan, Xiaoyang Wan … (2020)

Background: The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic is a public health emergency of international concern and poses a challenge to psychological resilience. Research data are needed to develop evidence-driven strategies to reduce adverse psychological impacts and psychiatric symptoms during the epidemic. The aim of this study was to survey the general public in China to better understand their levels of psychological impact, anxiety, depression, and stress during the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. The data will be used for future reference. Methods: From 31 January to 2 February 2020, we conducted an online survey using snowball sampling techniques. The online survey collected information on demographic data, physical symptoms in the past 14 days, contact history with COVID-19, knowledge and concerns about COVID-19, precautionary measures against COVID-19, and additional information required with respect to COVID-19. Psychological impact was assessed by the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), and mental health status was assessed by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Results: This study included 1210 respondents from 194 cities in China. In total, 53.8% of respondents rated the psychological impact of the outbreak as moderate or severe; 16.5% reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms; 28.8% reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms; and 8.1% reported moderate to severe stress levels. Most respondents spent 20–24 h per day at home (84.7%); were worried about their family members contracting COVID-19 (75.2%); and were satisfied with the amount of health information available (75.1%). Female gender, student status, specific physical symptoms (e.g., myalgia, dizziness, coryza), and poor self-rated health status were significantly associated with a greater psychological impact of the outbreak and higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (p < 0.05). Specific up-to-date and accurate health information (e.g., treatment, local outbreak situation) and particular precautionary measures (e.g., hand hygiene, wearing a mask) were associated with a lower psychological impact of the outbreak and lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (p < 0.05). Conclusions: During the initial phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, more than half of the respondents rated the psychological impact as moderate-to-severe, and about one-third reported moderate-to-severe anxiety. Our findings identify factors associated with a lower level of psychological impact and better mental health status that can be used to formulate psychological interventions to improve the mental health of vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 epidemic.

0 comments Cited 4012 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Development of a new resilience scale: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC).

Kathryn M Connor, Jonathan Davidson (2003)

Resilience may be viewed as a measure of stress coping ability and, as such, could be an important target of treatment in anxiety, depression, and stress reactions. We describe a new rating scale to assess resilience. The Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) comprises of 25 items, each rated on a 5-point scale (0-4), with higher scores reflecting greater resilience. The scale was administered to subjects in the following groups: community sample, primary care outpatients, general psychiatric outpatients, clinical trial of generalized anxiety disorder, and two clinical trials of PTSD. The reliability, validity, and factor analytic structure of the scale were evaluated, and reference scores for study samples were calculated. Sensitivity to treatment effects was examined in subjects from the PTSD clinical trials. The scale demonstrated good psychometric properties and factor analysis yielded five factors. A repeated measures ANOVA showed that an increase in CD-RISC score was associated with greater improvement during treatment. Improvement in CD-RISC score was noted in proportion to overall clinical global improvement, with greatest increase noted in subjects with the highest global improvement and deterioration in CD-RISC score in those with minimal or no global improvement. The CD-RISC has sound psychometric properties and distinguishes between those with greater and lesser resilience. The scale demonstrates that resilience is modifiable and can improve with treatment, with greater improvement corresponding to higher levels of global improvement. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

0 comments Cited 2429 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance

Gordon Cheung, Roger B. Rensvold (2002)

0 comments Cited 1885 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Francesca Chiesi: francesca.chiesi@unifi.it

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Psychol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Psychol

Title: BMC Psychology

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 2050-7283

Publication date (Electronic): 29 December 2022

Publication date PMC-release: 29 December 2022

Publication date Collection: 2022

Volume: 10

Electronic Location Identifier: 321

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.8404.8, ISNI 0000 0004 1757 2304, Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug, and Child’s Health (NEUROFARBA), Section of Psychology, , University of Florence, ; Via San Salvi 12-Padiglione 26, 50135 Florence, Italy

[2 ]GRID grid.8404.8, ISNI 0000 0004 1757 2304, School of Psychology, , University of Florence, ; Florence, Italy

[3 ]GRID grid.155956.b, ISNI 0000 0000 8793 5925, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, ; Toronto, ON Canada

Article

Publisher ID: 1023

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-022-01023-z

PMC ID: 9797899

PubMed ID: 36581890

SO-VID: 95361bc5-9b31-43b5-87e9-40836444b352

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 22 July 2022

Date accepted : 13 December 2022

Custom metadata

Keywords: psychological assessment,perceived vulnerability,covid-19

Data availability:

Keywords: psychological assessment, perceived vulnerability, covid-19

The psychometric properties and gender invariance of the Italian version of the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Questionnaire (I-PVDQ) during the COVID-19 pandemic

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Related collections

Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 120

Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China

Development of a new resilience scale: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC).

Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 239

Most referenced authors 1,485