The Coronavirus Anxiety Scale: Cross-national measurement invariance and convergent validity evidence.

Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) is a widely used measure that captures somatic symptoms of coronavirus-related anxiety. In a large-scale collaboration spanning 60 countries (Ntotal = 21,513), we examined the CAS’s measurement invariance and assessed the convergent validity of CAS scores in relation to the fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S) and the satisfaction with life (SWLS-3) scales. We utilized both conventional exact invariance tests and alignment procedures, with results revealing that the single-factor model fit the data well in almost all countries. Partial scalar invariance was supported in a subset of 56 countries. To ensure the robustness of results, given the unbalanced samples, we employed resampling techniques both with and without replacement and found the results were more stable in larger samples. The alignment procedure demonstrated a high degree of measurement invariance with 9% of the parameters exhibiting noninvariance. We also conducted simulations of alignment using the parameters estimated in the current model. Findings demonstrated reliability of the means but indicated challenges in estimating the latent variances. Strong positive correlations between CAS and FCV-19S estimated with all three different approaches were found in most countries. Correlations of CAS and SWLS-3 were weak and negative, but significantly differed from zero in several countries. Overall, the study provided support for the measurement invariance of the CAS and offered evidence of its convergent validity while also highlighting issues with variance estimation.The work of Jorge Gaete was supported by Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo-Millennium Science Initiative Program, GrantNCS2021_081. The work of Adrian Stanciu was supported by GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. The work of Shanu Shukla, Martina Klicperova-Baker, and Iva Polackova Solcova was supported by Narodni plan obnovy (NPO) "Systemic Risk Institute," Grant LX22NPO5101, funded by the European Union-Next Generation European Union (Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, NPO: EXCELES). The work of Hrant M. Avanesyan was supported by the financial support of the RA Science Committee, Project 21T-5A203. The work of Breeda McGrath was supported by American Psychological Association Division 48, Small Grants Program. The work of Judyta Borchet was supported by the Foundation for Polish Science, Scholarship START 006.2022. The work of Rubia Carla Formighieri Giordani was supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico/CNPq), Project 401749/2022-3