Social stigma against individuals with COVID-19: scale development and validation

Background: Social stigma toward individuals with COVID-19 is a public phenomenon that significantly impacts the prevention of this disease. The study aimed to develop and examine the scale of social stigma against people with COVID-19. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from June to August 2021 using random sampling. Two hundred twenty-five people were involved in the study. All people are domiciled in Bandung Regency, West Java, Indonesia and have never been infected with COVID-19. The scale was designed based on the dimensional structure of social stigma and then evaluated the scale's psychometric properties. Result: The study found that instruments with 12 items had a content validity index of 1.0. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.875 showed as satisfactory. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the first sample (n = 100), and four factors were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis: ignorance/labelling, stereotype, separation, and discrimination. Following this, the confirmatory factor analysis in the remaining sample (n = 120) showed a good fit between the four-factor model and the theoretical model of social stigma. Conclusions: The social stigma scale has been determined to be valid and reliable. Health practitioners can use this scale to predict social stigma toward individuals with COVID-19 to develop better transmission prevention strategies and improved quality of care.