The Vaccination Concerns in COVID-19 Scale (VaCCS): Development and validation

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Behavioral Science
• Psychometrics

Background:

• COVID-19 vaccines are crucial for pandemic management but face challenges with widespread adoption due to vaccine hesitancy.
• Understanding specific beliefs and concerns is vital for improving COVID-19 vaccination rates and achieving herd immunity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Vaccination Concerns in COVID-19 Scale (VaCCS), a comprehensive instrument to measure beliefs and concerns related to COVID-19 vaccination.
• To provide a reliable and valid tool for researchers and practitioners to assess factors influencing vaccine intentions and uptake.

Main Methods:

• Scale development involved qualitative data from Australian and USA residents and a rapid literature review.
• Readability and face validity were assessed by experts and non-experts.
• Scale validation utilized exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on large Australian and USA samples, alongside measures of socio-political, health beliefs, and trait variables.

Main Results:

• The VaCCS comprises 35 items across 8 subscales, demonstrating acceptable fit and factorial invariance across Australian and USA samples.
• Concurrent and predictive validity tests confirmed theoretically predictable relationships between VaCCS subscales and other measured variables.
• Key VaCCS subscales successfully predicted intentions to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Conclusions:

• The VaCCS is a novel, psychometrically sound measure for assessing COVID-19 vaccine beliefs and concerns.
• The scale can be used in its entirety or selectively, offering flexibility for diverse research and practical applications in public health and vaccine hesitancy studies.