Abstract

Background: Negative beliefs about vaccines can threaten herd immunityand pandemic control. Although beliefs about vaccines influence vaccinationintention, there are no valid instruments that evaluate this in the Latin Ameri-can population. Aim: To evaluate the psychometric properties of two scales thatmeasure negative beliefs towards vaccines in general and against SARS-CoV-2and provide evidence of their association with vaccination intention (convergentvalidity) in a Chilean sample.Material and Methods: Two studies were carriedout. The first included 263 people who answered the beliefs towards vaccinesin general scale (CV-G) and the beliefs towards the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinescale (CV-COVID). Exploratory factor analyses were conducted. In the secondstudy, 601 people answered the same scales. Confirmatory factor analyses andstructural equation modeling were performed to provide evidence of validity.Results: Both scales had an unifactorial structure and excellent reliability andshowed associations with the intention of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2,providing evidence of convergent validity. Conclusions: The scales evaluatedhere are reliable and valid measures that showed associations with vaccinationintention in the Chilean population.