Objectives: The lack of validated instruments assessing vaccine hesitancy/confidence among health care professionals (HCPs) for themselves, and their patients led us to develop and validate the Pro-VC-Be instrument to measure vaccine confidence and other psychosocial determinants of HCPs' vaccination behavior among diverse HCPs in different countries.
Methods: Cross-sectional survey in October-November 2020 among 1,249 GPs in France, 432 GPs in French-speaking parts of Belgium, and 1,055 nurses in Quebec (Canada), all participating in general population immunization. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses evaluated the instrument's construct validity. We used HCPs' self-reported vaccine recommendations to patients, general immunization activity, self-vaccination, and future COVID-19 vaccine acceptance to test criterion validity.
Results: The final results indicated a 6-factor structure with good fit: vaccine confidence (combining complacency, perceived vaccine risks, perceived benefit-risk balance, perceived collective responsibility), trust in authorities, perceived constraints, proactive efficacy (combining commitment to vaccination and self-efficacy), reluctant trust, and openness to patients. The instrument showed good convergent and criterion validity and adequate discriminant validity.
Conclusions: This study found that the Pro-VC-Be is a valid instrument for measuring psychosocial determinants of HCPs' vaccination behaviors in different settings. Its validation is currently underway in Europe among various HCPs in different languages.
Keywords: Health care professionals; questionnaire validation; vaccination behaviors; vaccine confidence; vaccine hesitancy.