Abstract:
Objective: As a consequence of Covid-19 outbreak, corona anxiety has become prevalent, and in the attempt of understanding and treating this type of anxiety, researchers are examining its relationship with attentional bias, a phenomenon closely associated with other types of anxiety. Dot probe task is the common instrument used for the evaluation of attentional bias, but the psychometric properties of this instrument when used for the assessment of attentional bias towards corona-related stimuli, is unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of Covid-19 dot probe task to see whether its application in Covid-19 studies is justified. Methods: 362 Iranian adults completed Covid-19 dot probe task and Corona Anxiety Disease Scale (CADS), 146 of which repeated this procedure after two weeks to provide test-retest data. Split-half reliability, Cronbach’s alpha, intraclass correlation coefficient of test-retest scores, and associations between Covid-19 dot probe task and CADS were calculated using the 26th version of SPSS software. Results: The study’s results indicated that the standard version of Covid-19 dot probe task lacks internal consistency, test-retest reliability and criterion validity, whereas the response-based version of the instrument, improves all of these psychometric properties to an acceptable level. Conclusion: It could be concluded that Covid-19 dot probe task is a psychometrically sound instrument for evaluating corona-related attentional bias and investigating its role in the mechanism of corona anxiety, only if the response-based method of computation is used for calculating the measures of attentional bias.