Fear and concern about the outbreak of a world war: validation of an instrument in eight Latin American countries (Third World War scale)

Introduction: Since the cold war, the population have not felt so much fear about the outbreak of the Third World War, sensation revived with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Objective: The aim is to validate a test in Latin America that measures fear perception and concern about a world war. Methodology: It is an instrumental study using Google Forms. It obtained 1684 participants in eight countries in Latin America. The creation of the first instrument was based on previous questionnaires that measured fear in the face of unexpected events, and other specific questions were added in the context of the war. Subsequently, the entire validation process was carried out. It was calculated the values of skewness, kurtosis, and communalities. Results: Exploratory factor analysis showed that two factors were generated, confirmed by the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test (KMO = 0,962) and Barlett’s test (19558.5; df = 78; p = 0.000). Confirmatory factor analysis yielded seven items in two factors (χ² = 139,85, df = 13, p = 0.001; RMR = 0.050; GFI = 0.980; CFI = 0,990; TLI = 0.980; and RMSEA = 0.080). The global Cronbach’s alpha = 0.92 (for factor 1 = 0.98, and factor 2 = 0.88). Discussion: The final instrument with seven questions allows to measure adequately general fear (factor 1), and physical and mental repercussions due to the possibility of the outbreak of a world war (factor 2).