Validation and psychometric properties of the Italian Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX-I) scale

Abstract

Despite the massive volume of scientific evidence on the benefits of immunisation, vaccine hesitancy is still a global health threat and represents an obstacle to controlling the spread of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and its associated COVID-19. Thus, the present study aimed to adapt and validate an Italian version of the Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) scale. The Italian version of the scale (VAX-I), along with validation measures (general health perceptions, perceived sensitivity to medicines, intention to get the flu vaccine, and trust in health authorities) were administered to a sample of 534 Italian participants aged 18 to 87 (M = 32.41, SD = 15.35). The original version of the VAX scale was translated into Italian using a back-translation method. The parallel and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the scale’s four-factor structure fits the data well, as in the original version. Reliability coefficients indicated that the VAX-I scale showed good internal consistency and measurement invariance results demonstrated that the VAX-I scale is stable across gender. Construct validity was supported by the significant negative correlation with general health perceptions, intentions to get the flu vaccine, and trust in health authorities, and the weak but significant and positive correlation with perceived sensitivity to medicines. Overall, the VAX-I scale appears to be a valid instrument to assess vaccine hesitancy in the Italian context.

COVID-19 vaccine uptake among family caregivers of people with dementia: The role of attitudes toward vaccination, perceived social support and personality traits

“…Attitudes toward vaccination were evaluated using the Italian version of the Vaccination Attitudes Examination Scale (VAX-I scale; Martin and Petrie, 2017;Bruno et al, 2022). It consists of 12 items which can be divided into four subscales (mistrust of vaccine benefit, worries about unforeseen future effects, concerns about commercial profiteering, and preference for natural immunity), each indicated by three items.…”

COVID-19 in Pregnancy: Knowledge about the Vaccine and the Effect of the Virus. Reliability and Results of the MAMA-19 Questionnaire

“…The following themes emerged: (1) pregnancy is considered an independent risk factor for adverse outcomes in case of SARS-CoV-2 infection; (2) mistrust, anxiety and scepticism of COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness are the main determinants of vaccine hesitancy in pregnant women [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ].…”

“…The following scales were consulted to build the questionnaire ( Supplementary Files ): Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) scale [ 19 , 23 ], with good internal consistency, and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) scale, an excellent scale with Cronbach’s α = 0.93 and good test/retest reliability with an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.80 [ 24 , 25 ].…”

The psychometric properties and the factorial structure of COVID-19 Vaccines Acceptance scale (VAC-COVID-19) within the Arabic language in a Palestinian contex

“…Results revealed that the Arabic version of the 5 C scale is a valid and reliable tool to assess the psychological antecedents of the COVID-19 vaccine among the Arab population. [7] examined the validation indicators of an Italian version of the Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) scale; the results showed that the VAX-I scale appears to be a valid instrument to assess vaccine hesitancy in the Italian context. Finally, [16] tested the validation of the Multidimensional Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Scale (CoVaH) in the Hungarian context, the CoVaH displayed excellent fit indices and internal consistencies and was found to have good validity in identifying Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in the general population.…”