COVID-19 related stigma among the general population in Iran

COVID-19 related stigma has been identified as a critical issue since the beginning of the pandemic. We developed a valid and reliable questionnaire to measure COVID-19 related enacted stigma, inflicted by the non-infected general population. We applied the questionnaire to measure COVID-19 related enacted stigma among Tehran citizens from 27 to 30 September 2020.

A preliminary questionnaire with 18 items was developed. The total score ranged from 18 to 54; a higher score indicated a higher level of COVID-19 related stigma. An expert panel assessed the face and content validity. Of 1637 randomly recruited Tehran citizens without a history of COVID-19 infection, 1064 participants consented and were interviewed by trained interviewers by phone.

Item content validity index (I-CVI), Item content validity ratio (I-CVR), and Item face validity index (I-FVI) were higher than 0.78 for all 18 items. The content and face validity were established with a scale content validity index (S-CVI) of 0.90 and a scale face validity index (S-CVI) of 93.9%, respectively. Internal consistency of the questionnaire with 18 items was confirmed with Cronbach's alpha of 0.625. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five latent variables, including "blaming", "social discrimination", "dishonor label", "interpersonal contact", and "retribution and requital attitude". The median of the stigma score was 24 [25th percentile: 22, 75^the percentile: 28]. A large majority (86.8%) of participants reported a low level of stigma with a score below 31. None of the participants showed a high level of stigma with a score above 43. We found that the higher the educational level the lower the participant's stigma score.

We found a low level of stigmatizing thoughts and behavior among the non-infected general population in Tehran, which may be due to the social desirability effect, to the widespread nature of COVID-19, or to the adaptation to sociocultural diversity of the large city.