Motors of COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance Scale (MoVac-COVID19S): Evidence of Measurement Invariance Across Five Countries

I-Hua Chen; Pei-Ling Wu; Cheng-Fang Yen; Irfan Ullah; Sheikh Shoib; Shafi Ullah Zahid; Aadil Bashir; Naved Iqbal; Frimpong-Manso Addo; Emma Sethina Adjaottor; Gifty Boakye Amankwaah; Daniel Kwasi Ahorsu; Mark D Griffiths; Chung-Ying Lin; Amir H Pakpour

doi:10.2147/RMHP.S351794

Motors of COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance Scale (MoVac-COVID19S): Evidence of Measurement Invariance Across Five Countries

Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2022 Mar 10:15:435-445. doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S351794. eCollection 2022.

Authors

I-Hua Chen^#¹, Pei-Ling Wu^#^{2

3}, Cheng-Fang Yen^#^{4

5

6}, Irfan Ullah⁷, Sheikh Shoib⁸, Shafi Ullah Zahid⁹, Aadil Bashir¹⁰, Naved Iqbal¹¹, Frimpong-Manso Addo¹², Emma Sethina Adjaottor¹², Gifty Boakye Amankwaah¹², Daniel Kwasi Ahorsu¹³, Mark D Griffiths¹⁴, Chung-Ying Lin^{15

16

17

18}, Amir H Pakpour¹⁹

Affiliations

¹ Chinese Academy of Education Big Data, Qufu Normal University, Qufu City, Shandong, People's Republic of China.
² School of Medicine, College of Medicine, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
³ Department of Pediatrics, E-Da Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, 80708, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, 80756, Taiwan.
⁶ College of Professional Studies, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, 91201, Taiwan.
⁷ Kabir Medical College, Gandhara University, Peshawar, Pakistan.
⁸ Sheikh Shoib Department of Psychiatry, Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Hospital, Srinagar, India.
⁹ Department of Neurosurgery, Jamhuriat hospital, Kabul, Afghanistan.
¹⁰ Department of Social Work, University of Kashmir, Kashmir, India.
¹¹ Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
¹² Department of Behavioural Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
¹³ Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
¹⁴ International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Department, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
¹⁵ Institute of Allied Health Sciences, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
¹⁶ Biostatistics Consulting Center, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
¹⁷ Department of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
¹⁸ Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
¹⁹ Department of Nursing, School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: The percentage of individuals who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 was 53% worldwide, 62% in Asia, and 11% in Africa at the time of writing (February 9, 2022). In addition to administrative issues, vaccine hesitancy is an important factor contributing to the relatively low rate of vaccination. The Motors of COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance Scale (MoVac-COVID19S) was developed to assess COVID-19 vaccination acceptance levels. However, it has only been tested among Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, and Ghanaian populations (Chen et al, 2021; Fan et al, 2021; Yeh et al, 2021). Therefore, the present study examined the construct validity and measurement invariance of the MoVac-COVID19S among individuals from five countries (ie, Taiwan, mainland China, India, Ghana, and Afghanistan).

Participants and methods: A cross-sectional survey study recruited 6053 participants across five countries who completed the survey between January and March 2021. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) fit indices were used to examine factor structure and measurement invariance across the five countries.

Results: The fit indices of the CFA were relatively good across the countries except for the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). Moreover, the four-factor structure (either nine or 12 items) had a better fit than the one-factor structure. However, the four-factor model using nine MoVac-COVID19S items was the only model that had measurement invariance support for both factor loadings and item intercepts across the five countries.

Conclusion: The present study confirmed that the MoVac-COVID19S has acceptable psychometric properties and can be used to assess an individual's willingness to get COVID-19 vaccination.

Keywords: factor structure; vaccine hesitancy; young adults.