2.2.3. Illness Perception

The Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire is a seven-item scale designed to assess both the emotional and cognitive representation of illness, adapted for use with COVID-19 [9,23]. The items are responded to on a 11-point scale (0–10) producing possible scores ranging from 0 to 70, with higher scores indicative of greater levels of perceived illness. Broadbent, Petrie, Main, and Weinman (2006) reported acceptable levels of reliability and validity [58], with a "good" Cronbach's alpha value of 0.85 reported [61].

#### 2.2.4. COVID-19 Specific Stress

The Effects of COVID-19 Questionnaire is a 34-item tool designed to measure individuals' perception of COVID-19 related stresses and associated gratitude. This measure contains four subscales: Personal Stress (items 1–13), Parenting Stress (items 14–21), Older Aging Parent Stress (22–25), and Gratitude (26–34), in which respondents must choose from five response options. Within the ECQ subscales, the ranges for Personal Distress are: Normal 0–12; Mild 13–19; Moderate 20–26; Severe 27–33; Extremely Severe ≥34. Burke et al. [9] reported satisfactory levels of reliability for this scale with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.79 for the Personal Distress subscale.
