Fear of the Disease

What it measures

This scale measures how much a person is afraid of, and thinks about the possibility of, getting a particular disease. Hita et al. (2023) used it in a six-month longitudinal study in Canada focused on attitudes and behaviors regarding COVID-19, gathering data across six measurement periods; the authors slightly adapted three of six items from a measure used by Birmingham et al. (2015).

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

Scale items

• Thinking about getting _____ makes me afraid.
• I get a bad feeling just thinking about the possibility of getting _____.
• Thinking about the chances of getting _____ makes me uncomfortable.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Alphas were consistently high across the six measurement periods, ranging from .93 to .97 (Hita et al. 2023, p. 141). Convergent and discriminant validity were supported; AVEs ranged from .82 to .96 across the six periods (Web Appendix A). The blanks should be filled with the name of the focal disease, e.g., COVID-19.

Citation

Hita, Marie Louise Radanielina, Vany Gregoire, Bruno Lussier, Simon Boissonneault, Christian Vandenberghe, and Sylvain Senecal (2023), "An Extended Health Belief Model for COVID-19: Understanding the Media-based Processes Leading to Social Distancing and Panic Buying," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 51 (1), 132-152.

Keywords