Validation of the Russian version of Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemics – 9 items (SAVE-9) among healthcare workers during COVID-19 pandemic

Over the past two years, healthcare workers have been daily saving patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in life-threatening conditions. These circumstances contribute to an increase in the psychopathological disorders in this social group. However, today there is no validated questionnaire that allows to quickly and effectively identify the group of healthcare workers with high levels of stress and anxiety during the pandemic in Russia.

Objective: to validate the Russian version of Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemic scale (SAVE-9).

Patients and methods. The study was a cross-sectional online survey of 1090 frontline healthcare workers. Stress and anxiety symptoms were assessed using SAVE-9 and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scales, respectively. Factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed to determine the internal structure of SAVE-9 scale. ROC-analysis was used to identify the validity of the SAVE-9 compared with GAD-7 and its cut-off score.

Results and discussion. The principal component analysis showed a two-factor structure of SAVE-9. Factor 1 was associated with anxiety and somatic symptoms, factor 2 – with social stress. Cronbach's alpha=0,787. The total score of SAVE-9 with a high degree of confidence predicted the GAD-7 value in ROC-analysis. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.808; 95% confidence interval 0.768–0.847 (p=0.0001), which corresponded to the model's good quality. The appropriate cut-off score was determined as 18.

Conclusion. We demonstrated the validity of the new SAVE-9 scale, which can be used as a specific screening method to detect high levels of anxiety and stress in healthcare workers during a viral outbreak. 

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