Studies have shown that Australian university students report poorer mental health than the general Australian population. International students in particular experience mental health outcomes below those of their domestic cohort. They experienced financial stress, loneliness, depression and anxiety. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to even more difficulties for this vulnerable group.
The impact of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown on university students in Australia was immediate and significant. Campuses closed with little warning and sources of part-time employment for university students – hospitality and retail – quickly dried up. The impact was compounded for international students in Australia who were geographically separated from their support networks and faced enormous financial and housing stress (Soong & Procter, 2020). Compared to other health threats, a disease like COVID-19 engenders significant fear because of its imminence, invisibility and transmissibility (Pappas et al., 2009), and there has been an exaggerated fear related to infection compared to other conditions.
Infection possesses unique characteristics that account for this disproportionate degree of fear: it is transmitted rapidly and invisibly; historically, it has accounted for major morbidity and mortality; old forms re-emerge and new forms emerge; and both the media and society are often in shock. In an outbreak, the patient is both a victim and a vector. There is potential for personal rights to be infringed upon in order to control an outbreak, and there is a fear of infection from an unseen threat which doesn’t discriminate. This fear can impact upon everyday life and make existing mental and physical health problems worse. We need a way of measuring this fear so we can understand how it affects mental and physical health and how we can best treat it.
This research is adapted from Ho et al’s (2005) SARS-related fear scale as a general contagion-related fear scale, suitable for use across a range of diseases and populations. The factor structure, validity and reliability of the adapted scale – the Contagion Fear and Threat Scale (CFTS) – was examined among Australian (n=155), Indian (n=111), and Nepali (n=148) university students studying in Australia at the height of Australia’s first wave of COVID-19.
The six-item CFTS (a=.73 to .80) comprises two three-item subscales: Fear of Infection (a=.62 to .73) and Existential Threat (a=.68 to .80). The two subscales can be distinguished in terms of the object of the fear measured. The object of Fear of Infection is specific and external to the self (i.e., COVID-19 infection). Existential Threat, however, has no specific object, rather it is an unanchored and subjective experience of threat to one’s own existence, triggered in this case, by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a highly globalised world, pandemics are inevitable. Unlike other, recently developed measures of the psychological impact of COVID-19, the CFTS draws directly on the important scale-development work already done during the SARS outbreak. It is a brief, reliable and valid measure and this study suggests it can be used in any pandemic, regardless of the disease or the population being investigated, and has been validated cross-culturally in Australian, Indian and Nepali populations. A better understanding of psychological responses to pandemics will help adjust to the ‘new normal’.
doi.10.31234/osf.io/4s65q