ICMR-National Institute of Medical Statistics, New Delhi, India.
School of Human Ecology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Indian J Med Res. 2022 Jan;155(1):156-164. doi: 10.4103/ijmr.ijmr_2455_21.
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: COVID-19 pandemic has triggered social stigma towards individuals affected and their families. This study describes the process undertaken for the development and validation of scales to assess stigmatizing attitudes and experiences among COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 participants from the community.
COVID-19 Stigma Scale and Community COVID-19 Stigma Scale constituting 13 and six items, respectively, were developed based on review of literature and news reports, expert committee evaluation and participants' interviews through telephone for a multicentric study in India. For content validity, 61 (30 COVID-19-recovered and 31 non-COVID-19 participants from the community) were recruited. Test-retest reliability of the scales was assessed among 99 participants (41 COVID-19 recovered and 58 non-COVID-19). Participants were administered the scale at two-time points after a gap of 7-12 days. Cronbach's alpha, overall percentage agreement and kappa statistics were used to assess internal consistency and test-retest reliability.
Items in the scales were relevant and comprehensible. Both the scales had Cronbach's α above 0.6 indicating moderate-to-good internal consistency. Test-retest reliability assessed using kappa statistics indicated that for the COVID-19 Stigma Scale, seven items had a moderate agreement (0.4-0.6). For the Community COVID-19 Stigma Scale, four items had a moderate agreement.
INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: Validity and reliability of the two stigma scales indicated that the scales were comprehensible and had moderate internal consistency. These scales could be used to assess COVID-19 stigma and help in the development of appropriate stigma reduction interventions for COVID-19 infected, and mitigation of stigmatizing attitudes in the community.
COVID-19 大流行引发了社会对受感染者及其家庭的污名化。本研究描述了开发和验证用于评估社区中 COVID-19 和非 COVID-19 参与者的污名化态度和经历的量表的过程。
COVID-19 污名量表和社区 COVID-19 污名量表分别由 13 项和 6 项组成，分别基于文献综述和新闻报道、专家委员会评估以及通过电话对印度多中心研究的参与者进行访谈而制定。为了评估内容效度，招募了 61 名参与者（30 名 COVID-19 康复者和 31 名来自社区的非 COVID-19 参与者）。在 99 名参与者（41 名 COVID-19 康复者和 58 名非 COVID-19 参与者）中评估了量表的重测信度。参与者在 7-12 天的间隔后两次接受量表测试。使用克朗巴赫的 α、总百分比一致性和 Kappa 统计来评估内部一致性和重测信度。
量表中的项目是相关的和可理解的。两个量表的克朗巴赫的 α 值均高于 0.6，表明具有中等至良好的内部一致性。使用 Kappa 统计评估的重测信度表明，对于 COVID-19 污名量表，有七个项目具有中度一致性（0.4-0.6）。对于社区 COVID-19 污名量表，有四个项目具有中度一致性。
两个污名量表的有效性和可靠性表明，这些量表是可理解的，并且具有中等的内部一致性。这些量表可用于评估 COVID-19 污名，并有助于为 COVID-19 感染者制定适当的减少污名化干预措施，并减轻社区中的污名化态度。
