BACKGROUND
The use of the Internet to look for information about vaccines has skyrocketed in the last years, especially with the Covid-19 crisis. Digital vaccine literacy refers to understanding, trust, appraisal and application of vaccine-related information online.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a tool measuring digital vaccine literacy and assess its psychometric properties.
METHODS
A seven-item online questionnaire was administered to 848 French adults. Performed psychometric analyses were: descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, reliability, consistency, and convergent and discriminatory validity.
RESULTS
We obtained the Digital Vaccine Literacy (DVL) 7-item scale composed of 3 factors (understanding and trust official information; understanding and trust information in social media; and appraisal of vaccine information online in terms of evaluation of the information and its application for decision-making). The mean DVL score was 19.5 (± 2.8) with a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 28. The median was 20 and 25% had a score below 18 and 25% above 21. Scores were significantly different by sex, age, studying or working in the field of health, and receiving regular flu shots.
CONCLUSIONS
The DVL tool showed good content validity, reliability, internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity, thus proving to be a promising measure of digital vaccine literacy.
CLINICALTRIAL
None