The return of war to Europe with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict generated mental health
effects even in countries not directly involved in the war. The present study describes the Italian
adaptation and validation of the Fear of War Scale (FOWARS), i.e., a 13-item Likert scale built by
a Romanian research team and exploring the fear of war. For the Italian adaptation, a sample of
150 young Italian adults (aged 18–30, M = 21.7; SD = 2.2) has been collected. Exploratory Factor
Analysis conducted with PCA confirmed the bifactorial structure of the scale and detected two
dimensions, i.e., the “Physiological dimension of fear” and the “Experiential dimension of fear”. The
results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis show adequate goodness of fit and the last version of
the scale, consisting of 12 items, shows good internal consistency and convergent and discriminant
validity. Positive significant correlations with the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) and the
Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) were also found. Moreover, results from ANOVA
display significant differences between men and women, with the latter showing higher values of fear
of war. Finally, t-test analyses highlight the impact of the fear of war on Italian young adults’ mental
health and worry. The Italian adaptation of FOWARS has good overall psychometric properties
and can be used to explore the fear of war in the Italian young adult population to highlight the
psychological impact of war and its relationship with mental health
