Nurses' fear of contagion: a functional-measurement analysis

The amounts of fear of contagion aroused in nurses by 15 unnamed diseases were examined. The diseases were chosen to allow factorial arrangement according to their degrees of transmissibility and the severities of their prognoses. Concern about contagion was hypothesized to increase as transmissibility increased and as prognosis worsened, in accord with a multiplicative model. The model was tested with functional measurement procedures, because this method allows simultaneous evaluation of the descriptive accuracy of the proposed model and validation of the rating scale. The model was supported graphically and statistically. Nurses' worries were found to have the regularity prescribed by a multiplicative process. Although one of the diseases was constructed to simulate the characteristics of AIDS, no magnification of fear was found in relation to other deadly and infectious diseases.