2.2.1. Fear of COVID-19

Fear of COVID-19 was assessed using the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S). The FCV-19S is a well validated instrument that uses seven items to assess an individual’s fear of COVID-19. All the items were assessed using a five-point Likert scale and a higher score indicates a higher level of fear of COVID-19. Prior studies have shown that the FCV-19S has satisfactory psychometric properties in different language versions, including the Persian version [32,33,34]. In the present sample, the internal consistency (α = 0.88), composite reliability (CR = 0.87), and average variance extracted (AVE = 0.48) were acceptable.