The five-item Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) was found to be a useful and valid mental health screener. Participants in the respective surveys were mostly from single countries such as the US, Turkey, Mexico, or Brazil. However, a cross-cultural re-examination is lacking. This study fills this gap. In several multigroup confirmatory factor analyses with 25 countries from five continents as groups, sex and age as groups, and different stages of concern with COVID-19 infection, CAS was found to be invariant across all groups; this indicates that CAS is appropriate for meaningfully comparing the results across different groups. On a global basis, Coronavirus anxiety did not differ between female and male participants. Regarding age, however, younger individuals suffered more from anxiety of the pandemic. Individualistic cultures and those with low power distance such as in the Western hemisphere had higher COVID-19 anxiety. CAS values were also higher for those individuals who had been infected by COVID-19, those whose relatives had been infected, and those who experienced COVID-19-related death in the family. Overall, CAS is a parsimonious, valid, and reliable mental health screener on a global basis.

研究发现，五项冠状病毒焦虑量表 (CAS) 是一种有用且有效的心理健康筛查工具。各项调查的参与者大多来自美国、土耳其、墨西哥或巴西等单一国家。然而，缺乏跨文化的重新审视。这项研究填补了这一空白。在以五大洲 25 个国家为组、以性别和年龄为组、以及对 COVID-19 感染的不同关注阶段进行的多项多组验证性因素分析中，发现 CAS 在所有组中都是不变的；这表明 CAS 适合有意义地比较不同组之间的结果。在全球范围内，女性和男性参与者对冠状病毒的焦虑没有差异。然而，就年龄而言，年轻人更容易遭受大流行的焦虑。个人主义文化和权力距离较小的文化（例如西半球）的 COVID-19 焦虑程度较高。对于那些感染了 COVID-19 的人、那些亲属被感染的人以及那些在家庭中经历过与 COVID-19 相关的死亡的人来说，CAS 值也更高。总体而言，CAS 在全球范围内是一种简洁、有效且可靠的心理健康筛查工具。