Social stigma against individuals with COVID-19: scale development and validation

Social stigma toward individuals with COVID-19 is a public phenomenon that significantly impacts the prevention of this disease. The study aimed to develop and examine the scale of social stigma against people with COVID-19.

A cross-sectional study was conducted from June to August 2021 using random sampling. Two hundred twenty-five people were involved in the study. All people are domiciled in Bandung Regency, West Java, Indonesia and have never been infected with COVID-19. The scale was designed based on the dimensional structure of social stigma and then evaluated the scale's psychometric properties.

The study found that instruments with 12 items had a content validity index of 1.0. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.875 showed as satisfactory. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the first sample (n = 100), and four factors were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis: ignorance/labelling, stereotype, separation, and discrimination. Following this, the confirmatory factor analysis in the remaining sample (n = 120) showed a good fit between the four-factor model and the theoretical model of social stigma.

The social stigma scale has been determined to be valid and reliable. Health practitioners can use this scale to predict social stigma toward individuals with COVID-19 to develop better transmission prevention strategies and improved quality of care.