To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Malaysian government implemented a movement control order, an emergency policy that instructed all people in the country to stay home. Being confined in a building for a lengthy period exposes individuals to the risk of having a range of symptoms known as cabin fever. Considering the negative impact of cabin fever, it is crucial to assess cabin fever symptoms among Malaysians. However, there is a lack of validated instruments; hence, this study attempts to develop an instrument for Malaysian adults, named Cabin Fever Scale (CFS). A total of 124 adults (75% females; M = 29.3 years) were recruited via the snowball sampling method to participate in an online survey. Exploratory factor analyses showed that the CFS items were pooled into two factors: behavioural symptoms (six items) and emotional symptoms (four items). Findings show that Malaysians viewed cabin fever as both behavioural and emotional symptoms. The behavioural symptoms comprise food craving, decreased motivation, difficulty waking up, and frequent naps, while emotional symptoms include anxiety, lethargy, depression, impatience, hopelessness, and dissatisfaction. Both CFS subscales demonstrated good internal reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha values of .768 (behavioural symptom) and .908 (emotional symptom). The 10-item CFS is deemed a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring cabin fever in Malaysia.
Social anxiety is explained as noticeable anxiety or fear in one or more social situations where the individual is exposed to possible analysis by others. This research is aimed to determine the association between perfectionism and social anxiety among adolescents in Selangor, Malaysia. A final sample of 327 participants, between 13 to 18 years old, was collected. Data collection was conducted in two public secondary schools and two private high schools in Selangor. This survey included three instruments of analysis: The Child-Adolescent Perfectionism Scale, Kutcher Generalized Social Anxiety Disorder Scale for Adolescents and Demographic Questionnaire. The results showed that there is a significant positive association between perfectionism and social anxiety. This study has proved the positive association between perfectionism and social anxiety among adolescents in Selangor, Malaysia. Therefore, it is important to identify those students with these issues and guide them in an effective way to overcome the issues.