Validity and Reliability of the Obsession with the COVID-19 Scale

Aims: The spread of Covid-19 worldwide has challenged public health and has had various psychological consequences. The present study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Obsession with the COVID-19 scale. Instrument & Methods: As a descriptive-correlational study and to validate the Obsession with the COVID-19 scale, 392 people over 18 participated online, using the available sampling method from May to August 2020. A demographic questionnaire, Obsession with the COVID-19 Scale and Fear of Covid-19 Scale, was used to collect data. To evaluate the instrumentchr('39')s reliability, Cronbachchr('39')s alpha internal consistency method and halving in the form of SPSS 25 statistical software and to evaluate the construct validity, confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis with the orthogonal rotation of Varimax type in Lisrel 8.8 software were used. Findings: Exploratory factor analysis identified all four items as one factor. Also, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the construction. The convergent validity of the scale with fear of Covid-19 showed a correlation value of 0.25 (p<0.01). In the scalechr('39')s validity, Cronbachchr('39')s alpha value was estimated to be 0.797, and the split-half reliability coefficient was estimated to be 0.771. Conclusion: Obsession with the COVID-19 Scale can be used as a suitable measurement tool in research.