2.2.2. Fear of COVID‐19 Scale

Parents' fear of COVID‐19 was measured with the Greek translation of the Fear of COVID‐19 Scale (FCV‐19S; Ahorsu et al., 2020). The scale was created to assess individuals' sense of fear of COVID‐19. The scale includes seven statements and constitutes one distinct factor measuring participants' emotional state towards COVID‐19 (e.g., “I am most afraid of coronavirus‐19,” “It makes me uncomfortable to think about coronavirus‐19.”). Participants are asked to respond to the statements based on a 5‐point Likert scale, ranging from (1) = strongly disagree to (5) = strongly agree. The index of fear of COVID‐19 derives from the average of the total score of the statements. The higher the score of the participants the higher their fear of COVID‐19.

To test the validity of the scale, a principal component analysis was carried out using the main component method and Varimax‐type rotation (KMO = 0.898, Bartlett χ ² = 1829.191, p < .001). One factor emerged with an eigenvalue more than 1.0 and significant interpretive value (Table 2) in line with the original factor structure: Factor 1 = Fear of COVID‐19, explaining 58.51% of the total variance. The internal consistency index for the factor is α = 0.898. The affinities (according to Pearson's correlation coefficient r) of the score of each question of the factor with the sum of the scores of the remaining questions of the factor (corrected item − total correlation) are considered satisfactory: Factor 1 (from r = 0.45 to r = 0.74).

Principal component analysis of the Fear of COVID‐19 Scale

Note 1: F1: Factor “Fear of COVID‐19.”

Note 2: All of the above‐standardized loadings of the factor are statistically significant (p < .05).

Abbreviation: COVID‐19, coronavirus disease 2019.