Objective: Healthcare professionals continue to work uninterruptedly and provide preventive and therapeutic services, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The risk of experiencing psychological health problems increases due to this heavy and continuous workload and various risk factors. Scales available in the international literature have been developed in adults to screen for fear of COVID-19. The purpose of this research was to develop a scale that will mediate the collection of valid and reliable data for medical faculty and to determine the COVID-19 fear levels of term 4, 5, 6 students.

Material and Method: This methodological type study was conducted in the 2020-2021 education period and total of 371 students in classrooms of 4,5 and 6 terms were included. Necessary arrangements were made and the candidate fear scale was created. The items in the scale were structured in a 5-point Likert style. The suitability of the data set for factor analysis was done with the Kaiser Meyer Olkin (KMO) test. The principal axis factoring (PAF) method was used as the factor determination method. The "Direct Oblimin" method was used as the rotation method. The validity and reliability proofs of the scale were examined according to the Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory. In this study, unidimensionality was examined by EFA. The local independence assumption was tested with the Q3 statistic. IRT calibrations were provided with “mirt v.1.30” program within the scope of R v.4.0.5 software.

Results: 55.3% of three hundred and seventy-one participants were women (n=205). 41.8% of the students were in term 4 (n=155), 29.6% were in term 5 (n=110), 28.6% were in term 6 (n=106). The "item-total correlation analysis" of 35 items of the Candidate COVID-19 Fear Scale was carried out by explanatory factor analysis (EFA), and 18 items were excluded from the item pool because measurement and evaluation could not reach the desired values in the scale development literature. As a result of the analyzes made, it was determined that the COVID-19 fear scale, in a total of 17 items, with three sub-factors validly and reliably determined the COVID-19 fear level of the students (F1: Fear of Practicing Your Occupation Due to COVID-19; F2: Fear of Catching and Spreading COVID-19; F3: Fear of Illness Due to Negative Habits). In addition, the validity and reliability levels of the scale were proven according to both classical test theory and item response theory. The scale Total Cronbach Alpha Reliability Value was found to be 0.932, which is the reliability indicator of the COVID-19 fear scale according to the classical test theory. The marginal reliability coefficients were detected at the levels of 0.920, 0.870 and 0.811 respectively for the F1, F2 and F3 sub-factors according to the item response theory.

Conclusion: It has been observed that the COVID-19 fear scale determined the COVID-19 fear level in medical students in a valid and reliable way with three sub- factors in 17 items. If the scale is used in different regions and medical students, it will also make an important contribution to the literature and detailed comparisons can be made.

COVID-19 korkusu Ölçek geliştirme Faktör analizi Madde tepki kuramı Tıp fakültesi öğrencisi