Turkish Adaptation and Reliability and Validity Study of The Parent Attitudes About Childhood Vaccines Survey

INTRODUCTION: From the discovery of vaccines, opposing views emerged and have spread to the present day. Despite based on different beliefs in different societies, anti-vaccination has become a rapidly growing social movement worldwide. The resistance to vaccination was included among the health hazards at global level by the World Health Organization in 2019. In the literature review, some studies conducted on vaccine rejection, vaccine hesitations and vaccine acceptance were found in different countries, but no studies were found in Turkey in which vaccine hesitation was examined. The main reason was considered as the lack of a vaccine attitude scale adapted into Turkish language.
To adapt a vaccination attitudes scale-validity and reliability of which was proved in foreign empirical studies-into Turkish language and publish the scale in the field literature to be used in future vaccination attitudes studies in Turkey.

METHODS: This study is a methodological study. The Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) Scale was translated into Turkish by three experts who were competent in both languages, then it was translated back into English again. As a result of the comparison made, several changes were made in the Turkish scale. A pilot application was used and its results were evaluated. Confirming the results of the pilot application, the scale was applied to 225 parents. The reliability of the analyzed data was tested via Cronbach’s alpha. )
RESULTS: The reliability of the data was identified as 0.84, and the scale was considered reliable. Confirmatory factor analysis for the adapted was done, and adaptation of the scale into Turkish was completed.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The Turkish version of the The Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines scale is a valid and reliable scale for evaluating vaccine attitudes including vaccine rejection, vaccine hesitations and vaccine acceptance.