[Design and Validation of a Questionnaire on Vaccination in Students of Health Sciences, Spain].
OBJECTIVE
Immunization rates among medicine and nursing students -and among health professional in general- during hospital training are low. It is necessary to investigate the causes for these low immunization rates. The objective of this study was to design and validate a questionnaire for exploring the attitudes and behaviours of medicine and nursing students toward immunization of vaccine-preventable diseases.


METHODS
An instrument validation study. The sample included 646 nursing and medicine students at University of Oviedo, Spain. It was a non-ramdom sampling. After the content validation process, a 24-item questionnaire was designed to assess attitudes and behaviours/behavioural intentions. Reliability (ordinal alpha), internal validity (exploratory factor analysis by parellel analysis), ANOVA and mediational model tests were performed.


RESULTS
Exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors which accounted for 48.8% of total variance. Ordinal alpha for the total score was 0.92. Differences were observed across academic years in the dimensions of attitudes (F5.447=3.728) and knowledge (F5.448=65.59), but not in behaviours/behavioural intentions (F5.461=1.680). Attitudes demonstrated to be a moderating variable of knowledge and attitudes/behavioural attitudes (Indirect effect B=0.15; SD=0.3; 95% CI:0.09-0.19).


CONCLUSIONS
We developed a questionnaie based on sufficient evidence of reliability and internal validity. Scores on attitudes and knowledge increase with the academic year. Attitudes act as a moderating variable between knowledge and behaviours/behavioural intentions.
Unidad de Vacunas. Servicio de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública. Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias. Oviedo. Asturias. España.|Área de Medicina Preventiva, Salud Pública y Comunitaria. Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud. Universidad de Oviedo. Oviedo. Asturias. España.
María
M
Fernández-Prada
Área de Medicina Preventiva, Salud Pública y Comunitaria. Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud. Universidad de Oviedo. Oviedo. Asturias. España.
Pedro
P
Ramos-Martín
Área de Medicina Preventiva, Salud Pública y Comunitaria. Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud. Universidad de Oviedo. Oviedo. Asturias. España.
Jaime
J
Madroñal-Menéndez
Unidad de Vacunas. Servicio de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública. Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias. Oviedo. Asturias. España.|Área de Medicina Preventiva, Salud Pública y Comunitaria. Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud. Universidad de Oviedo. Oviedo. Asturias. España.
Carmen
C
Martínez-Ortega
Departamento de Psicología de la Educación y Psicobiología. Facultad de Educación. Universidad Internacional de la Rioja. Logroño. La Rioja. España.joaquin.gonzalez@unir.net.
Joaquín
J
González-Cabrera
D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013030:Spain; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014611:Vaccination / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult
Attitude to Health; Health Behavior; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Immunization; Medical students; Questionnaire; Spain; Students, Nursing; Vaccines