COVID-19 related distress in the Swedish population: Validation of the Swedish version of the COVID Stress Scales (CSS)

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 17; no. 2; p. e0263888
• Main Authors: Carlander, Anders, Lekander, Mats, Asmundson, Gordon J G, Taylor, Steven, Olofsson Bagge, Roger, Lindqvist Bagge, Ann-Sophie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 14.02.2022; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Anxieties; Anxiety; Biology and Life Sciences; Causes of; Contamination; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - psychology; Data collection; Discriminant Analysis; Disease transmission; Epidemics; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Fear & phobias; Female; Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi; Funding; Humans; Interpreters; Least-Squares Analysis; Male; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental health; Middle Aged; Pandemics; People and places; Population; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychological aspects; Psychology; Psykologi; Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology; Quantitative psychology; Regression Analysis; Social aspects; Social Sciences; Socioeconomic Factors; Stress; Stress (Psychology); Stress, Psychological - psychology; Supervision; Surgery; Surveys; Sweden; Translation; Xenophobia; Young Adult; Sweden; Canada
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263888

The COVID Stress Scales (CSS) assess health- and contamination-related distress in the face of a medical outbreak like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Though the CSS is translated into 21 languages, it has not been validated in a Swedish national sample. Our general objective is to provide a translation, replication, and validation of the CSS and test its convergent- and discriminant validity in relation to anxiety, health anxiety, depression, and stress in the general Swedish population. We also present latent psychometric properties by modelling based on item response theory. Participants consisted of 3044 Swedish adults (> 18 years) from a pre-stratified (gender, age, and education) sample from The Swedish Citizen Panel. Mental health status was assessed by validated instruments, including the CSS, PHQ-4, SHAI-14, and PSS-10. Results indicate that our Swedish translation of CSS has good psychometric properties and consists of 5 correlated factors. The CSS is useful either as a unidimensional or multidimensional construct using the CSS scales to measure key facets of pandemic-related stress. The findings support the cross-cultural validity of the CSS and its potential utility in understanding many of the emotional challenges posed by the current and future pandemics.