Search

Introduction: Assessing and understanding pregnant women's knowledge and perceptions of COVID-19 infection and its implications for pregnancy is critical for meeting their specific needs. However, currently, there is a lack of validated questionnaires to assess this issue. This study aims to determine the validity and reliability of the Knowledge and Attitude on the effect of COVID-19 Infection on Pregnancy (KACIP) Questionnaire Among pregnant women in Malaysia. Materials and methods: KACIP was developed using the Health Belief Model (HBM), extensive literature review and expert judgement. The questionnaire underwent a sequential validation process, content validation, face validation, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and internal consistency reliability-based Cronbach's alpha statistic. For the construct validation, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic at Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital. Results: The final KACIP consisted of two sections; Knowledge and Attitude on COVID-19 infection effect on pregnancy. The Knowledge section comprises three domains (13 items) and the Attitude section has two domains (9 items). Preliminary KACIP demonstrated a high item Content Validity Index and Face Validity Index. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin values for the Knowledge and Attitude sections were 0.785 and 0.783 respectively and had a significant p-value of

Background Pregnancy is one of the risks for severe COVID-19 infection, and receiving a vaccination is one of the effective methods to reduce disease severity. However, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women remains an issue. This study aims to develop and validate the pregnancy Vaccine Hesitancy Scale (pVHS) toward COVID-19 vaccine for Malaysian pregnant women. Method An 8-item Malay language pregnancy Vaccine Hesitancy Scale (pVHS-M) for COVID-19 was adapted from the adult Vaccine Hesitancy Scale and validated using Exploratory Factor Analysis. Six expert panels were involved in content validity, and ten pregnant women were involved in face validity. A cross-sectional study on 200 pregnant women was conducted between October 2022 and March 2023 at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Clinic, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan. Result The item-level content validity index is 1.00, demonstrating good relevance of the eight items used to assess COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The item-level face validity index obtained is 0.99, indicating that the items were clear and comprehensible. The Cronbach alpha score was 0.944, with factor loadings ranging from 0.79 to 0.89. Conclusion The pVHS-M demonstrated good internal consistency, indicating that it is a valid and reliable tool for assessing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women.