Psychometric properties and validation of the Italian version of the Medical Fear Survey- Short Version

Background: Assessing medically-related fears is of paramount importance to foster medical positive experiences and outcomes and requires an easy-to-administer tool. The Medical Fear Survey-Short Version (MFS-SV) is a 25-item questionnaire assessing 5 medically related fears (Injections and Blood Draws, Sharp Objects, Blood, Mutilation, and Examinations and Symptoms). Methods: To examine the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the MFS-SV, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed on data from 1010 young adults (68.8% female, mean age= 23.9 +/- 5.05) who provided demographic information and completed the MFS-SV, the Padua Inventory-Contamination Fear Subscale, the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale revised (DPSS-R) and the Injection Phobia Scale-Anxiety (IPS-Anx). Convergent validity, reliability, test-retest stability, and multigroup invariance were assessed. Discriminant analysis explored the potential screening function of the MFS-SV. Results: The 5-factor structure of the questionnaire was confirmed, explaining the 68.8% of variance. Raykov's composite reliability coefficients ranged between .84 and .95. Test-retest stability, convergent validity, and the consistency of the scores across gender were confirmed. The MFS-SV could discriminate subjects with a history of blood donations (Wilk's Lambda = 0.915; p < 0.001). Conclusion: The overall results supported the psychometric properties of the MFS-SV and its suitability for both research and clinical uses to assess different medical fears.