[Validation of the questionnaire on vaccines and hesitancy to be vaccinated in the Spanish Society of Epidemiology]

Abstract

Objective: To develop and validate a survey aimed at epidemiologists to measure factors associated with vaccine reluctance.

Method: Vaccination hesitancy refers to delayed acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite the availability of vaccination services. WHO included vaccination hesitancy among the 10 global health threats in 2019. Within this conceptual framework proposed by WHO, a committee of six experts from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (SEE) designed a self-administered questionnaire to study factors associated with vaccination hesitancy in epidemiologists. This questionnaire was approved by the SEE Board, and was sent online to all members in 2019. Based on the responses obtained, the following characteristics were validated: face validity, internal validity, construct validity, criterion validity, reliability, as well as the characteristic curves of each item and the information function per item and overall.

Results: The final questionnaire showed two well-defined components, perception of vaccines and confidence in the transparency of vaccine data with high degrees of fit in all aspects of validation. Both components have shown that the higher the reluctance to vaccinate the better the questionnaire reports on these aspects.

Conclusions: The study has allowed the development of a validated instrument in Spanish to measure the factors associated with vaccine reluctance among epidemiologists.

Keywords: Encuestas y cuestionario; Epidemiology; Epidemiología; Estudio de validación; Health personnel; Profesionales sanitarios; Reticencia vacunal; Surveys and questionnaires; Vaccination hesitancy; Validation study.