Abstract
Background: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) play an important role in vaccination; those with low confidence in vaccines are less likely to recommend them to their patients and to be vaccinated themselves. The study’s purpose was to adapt and validate long- and short-form versions of the International Professionals’ Vaccine Confidence and Behaviors (I-Pro-VC-Be) questionnaire to measure psychosocial determinants of HCPs’ vaccine confidence and their associations with vaccination behaviors in European countries. Research design and methods: After the original French-language Pro-VC-Be was culturally adapted and translated, HCPs involved in vaccination (mainly GPs and pediatricians) across Germany, Finland, France, and Portugal completed a cross-sectional online survey in 2022. A 10-factor multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) of the long-form (10 factors comprising 34 items) tested for measurement invariance across countries. Modified multiple Poisson regressions tested the criterion validity of both versions. Results: 2,748 HCPs participated. The 10-factor structure fit was acceptable to good everywhere. The final MG-CFA model confirmed strong factorial invariance and showed very good fit. The long- and short-form I-Pro-VC-Be had good criterion validity with vaccination behaviors. Conclusion: This study validates the I-Pro-VC-Be among HCPs in four European countries; including long- and short-form tools for use in research and public health.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 726-737 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Expert Review of Vaccines |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
This manuscript and the entire JITSUVAX project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant agreement number 964728 (JITSUVAX). We thank the following experts for their advice on the original version of the Pro-VC-Be questionnaire: C Betsch, M Deml, KB Habersaat, J Leask, and JK Ward. We also thank all partners within the JITSUVAX project (Jiu Jitsu with Misinformation in the Age of Covid) and the survey participants in all participating countries. We thank the various networks in each country from which participants were recruited for their involvement: the National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) in the UK, the Schlesinger Group Germany provider in Germany; the Portuguese Society of Pediatricians and the Portuguese Association of General Practice and Family Medicine in Portugal; the National College of General Practice Teachers (CNGE acronym in French) in France; and The Finnish Medical Association in Finland. We thank Jo Ann Cahn for her English proofreading of the revised version of this article.
Keywords
- Europe
- healthcare professionals
- international tool: vaccines
- vaccine confidence
- vaccine hesitancy