Obsession with COVID-19 Scale: A New Form of Psychological Disorder?

A score of ≥7 on this newly invented scale indicates dysfunctional COVID-19 thinking.

Source: Supriya Bhonsle at mixkit.co

Sherman A. Lee, an associate professor of psychology at Christopher Newport University, has recently invented a scale to identify excessive COVID-19 thought patterns. This new Obsession with COVID-19 Scale (OCS) would be of great help for scientists to conduct more standardized research on the mental health aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Lee first analyzed online survey data from 1,173 adults of about 30–32 years old across the US. He then looked for patterns that could describe dysfunctional or disordered COVID-19 thinking. Using bootstrap statistical analysis for reliability confirmation, he identified four such patterns:

Public domain source: Lee (2020). How much “Thinking” about COVID-19 is clinically dysfunctional? Brain, Behavior, Immunity. In press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.067