Do gender and educational level predict vaccination? The mediating role of attitudes towards vaccines and fear of COVID‐19

Given that the relationship between educational level, gender, and the fact of getting vaccinated does not seem to be clear, the aim of this research has been to verify if the beliefs towards vaccines and the fear of COVID‐19 are mediating this relationship in a general Spanish sample of 761 participants. After estimating a logistic regression with latent variables using Mplus, the results show that there is no direct effect of gender or educational level on vaccination. Furthermore, both fear of the coronavirus and attitudes towards vaccines act as mediators between sociodemographic variables and being vaccinated or not. Specifically, people with university studies show higher scores in Factor 1 (trust of vaccine benefits), while people with up to higher education show higher scores in the other three factors. However, only the first factor is a good predictor of getting vaccinated or not, so that having university studies and greater confidence in vaccines better predict getting vaccinated. Likewise, fear of COVID‐19 acts as a mediator variable between both sociodemographic variables and getting vaccinated or not. Therefore, being a woman, having up to higher education, as well as showing high levels of fear of COVID‐19, better predict getting vaccinated. On the other hand, the estimated value of b for the Vaccination variable shows that people above this level on the trait are more likely to be vaccinated. This study reports the importance of mediating variables when analyzing the influence of sociodemographic variables on deciding to get vaccinated or not. However, this is a non‐probabilistic sample, and similar studies should be carried out with a representative sample of the Spanish population. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Social & Personality Psychology Compass is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Spanish Burnout Inventory Among Professionals Across 17 Countries and Regions.

Studies on the prevalence of burnout in professionals in service organizations who work in direct contact with the clients or users of the organization have concluded that burnout is a serious health disorder that has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant advantage of the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI) over other instruments is that it provides a broader conceptualization of burnout by including feelings of guilt as a dimension of burnout to explain its development. However, the measurement invariance of the SBI across countries has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance of the SBI among professionals across 17 countries and regions in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and in different languages. All the countries showed a good fit to the four-factor model, except the Indian sample, which was excluded from the measurement invariance study. Using the alignment method, it was possible to verify the scalar measurement invariance of the four SBI factors across 15 countries and one Spanish region (16 samples). The comparison of estimated latent means indicates that France is the country with the lowest scores on the Enthusiasm factor and the highest scores on the negative factors (Exhaustion, Indolence, and Guilt). In contrast, the Andean countries, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, show the highest latent means on the Enthusiasm factor and the lowest means on the negative factors. These results support the validity of the SBI in the countries and regions in Europe and Latin America included in this study.

Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Spanish Burnout Inventory Among Professionals Across 17 Countries and Regions

Studies on the prevalence of burnout in professionals in service organizations who work in direct contact with the clients or users of the organization have concluded that burnout is a serious health disorder that has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A significant advantage of the Spanish Burnout Inventory (SBI) over other instruments is that it provides a broader conceptualization of burnout by including feelings of guilt as a dimension of burnout to explain its development. However, the measurement invariance of the SBI across countries has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance of the SBI among professionals across 17 countries and regions in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and in different languages. All the countries showed a good fit to the four-factor model, except the Indian sample, which was excluded from the measurement invariance study. Using the alignment method, it was possible to verify the scalar measurement invariance of the four SBI factors across 15 countries and one Spanish region (16 samples). The comparison of estimated latent means indicates that France is the country with the lowest scores on the Enthusiasm factor and the highest scores on the negative factors (Exhaustion, Indolence, and Guilt). In contrast, the Andean countries, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, show the highest latent means on the Enthusiasm factor and the lowest means on the negative factors. These results support the validity of the SBI in the countries and regions in Europe and Latin America included in this study.

Psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Vaccination Attitudes Examination Scale (VAX) in a Spanish sample.

In these times of pandemic, the acceptance or rejection of vaccines has become increasingly clear, with a considerable rise in the anti-vaccine movement in Spain. It is important to understand the attitudes that lead a person to refuse vaccination in order to develop more effective public health campaigns. The objective of this study has been to study the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Vaccination Attitudes Examination (VAX) scale in a Spanish sample. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling have been used to study the psychometric properties of the VAX. Likewise, the measurement invariance by gender and educational level has been studied. The structure of four related factors for VAX is confirmed, as well as its predictive value, since the factor "trust in the benefit of the vaccine" clearly predicts the choice to be vaccinated. The strong measurement invariance by gender and educational level is also confirmed. The comparison of latent means between groups indicates that there are no differences by gender in any factor. However, people with a high educational level present higher scores in factors "concern about unforeseen future effects", "concern about commercial effects and speculation" and "preference for natural immunity". The VAX is presented as a reliable and valid tool to assess four different factors related to attitudes towards vaccines in Spain. Future studies of its cross-cultural invariance may help to determine the main factors that lead people not to be vaccinated in order to develop more effective public health campaigns.

The Fear of Covid-19 Scale (FCV-19S) in Spain: Adaptation and Confirmatory Evidence of Construct and Concurrent Validity

Fear of the coronavirus has important implications on mental health. In western countries, a significant degree of vaccination has been achieved, but in Spain, less than 75% of the population has received both doses. The current situation is still seen as a threat by many people. Therefore, it is important to have reliable and valid measurement instruments to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the population. In this study, the Fear of COVID-19 Scale has been adapted to Spain, and its psychometric properties have been studied in a Spanish sample using Structural Equation Modeling. This methodology allows obtaining more reliable estimates, regardless of the measurement scale of the variables. The unifactorial structure was confirmed. The correlations with Neuroticism were statistically significant, and the concurrent validity structural equation model yielded good fit indices. However, neither age nor belonging to a risk group directly predict fear of the coronavirus in this sample, but gender and neuroticism are direct predictors. Likewise, neuroticism mediates the relationship between age and fear of COVID-19, and between gender and fear of COVID-19. So being young and being a woman show high scores on neuroticism, leading to their most intense fear of COVID-19. With this reliable and valid measurement instrument, it will be possible to assess the degree of fear of the coronavirus in the Spanish population and improve psychological interventions.

Measurement Invariance of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience Across 13 Countries.

The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) is widely used to measure emotional experiences, but not much is known about its cross-cultural utility. The present study evaluated the measurement invariance of the SPANE across adult samples (N = 12,635; age range = 18-85 years; 58.2% female) from 13 countries (China, Colombia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States). Configural and partial scalar invariance of the SPANE were supported. Three items capturing specific negative emotions (sad, afraid, and angry) were found to be culturally noninvariant. Our findings suggest that the SPANE's positive emotion terms and general negative emotion terms (e.g., negative and unpleasant) might be more suitable for cross-cultural studies on emotions and well-being, whereas caution is needed when comparing countries using the SPANE's specific negative emotion items.