Validity and reliability of the Turkish form of the vaccine attitudes scale

Abstract

Objective: Determining the attitudes of parents about vaccines is important for preventing vaccine hesitation, rejection and planning the necessary interventions. For this reason, the study was conducted to adapt the Vaccine Attitudes Scale to Turkish. Material and Methods: The study was a methodological research. 142 parents with children in the 0-14 age group were included in the study. The data of the study were collected using the Introductory Characteristics Form and Vaccine Attitudes Scale. Language and content validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to evaluate the validity of the scale. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient, item-total score correlations and Hotelling T2 test were used to evaluate reliability. Results: Content validity of the scale ranged between 0.90-1.00, and there was no difference between expert scores (Kendall's W=0.720; p=0.707). In the exploratory factor analysis, it was determined that the scale structure consisted of 11 items, 5 sub-dimensions and explained 84.09% of the total variance. It was found that the scale's factor loadings ranged between 0.90-0.97. The ratio of chi-square to degrees of freedom was 1.68 acording to confirmatory factor analysis. Evaluated fit indices indicates that the theoretical structures fit perfectly with the data obtained. The Cronbach alpha coefficient calculated to evaluate the reliability of the Vaccine Attitudes Scale was 0.66. Conclusion: The analyzes reveal that the Turkish version of the Vaccine Attitudes Scale is valid and reliable. It is recommended to use the scale in determining the attitudes of parents towards vaccines in our country.