TY - JOUR
T1 - Network analysis of the relationships between conspiracy beliefs towards COVID-19 vaccine and symptoms of fear of COVID-19 in a sample of latin american countries
AU - Caycho-Rodríguez, Tomás
AU - Ventura-León, José
AU - Valencia, Pablo D.
AU - Vilca, Lindsey W.
AU - Carbajal-León, Carlos
AU - Reyes-Bossio, Mario
AU - Delgado-Campusano, Mariel
AU - Rojas-Jara, Claudio
AU - Polanco-Carrasco, Roberto
AU - Gallegos, Miguel
AU - Cervigni, Mauricio
AU - Martino, Pablo
AU - Palacios, Diego Alejandro
AU - Moreta-Herrera, Rodrigo
AU - Samaniego-Pinho, Antonio
AU - Elías Lobos Rivera, Marlon
AU - Figares, Andrés Buschiazzo
AU - Puerta-Cortés, Diana Ximena
AU - Corrales-Reyes, Ibraín Enrique
AU - Calderón, Raymundo
AU - Tapia, Bismarck Pinto
AU - Arias Gallegos, Walter L.
AU - Petzold, Olimpia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022. Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
PY - 2024/4
Y1 - 2024/4
N2 - The present study examined how conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines specifically relate to symptoms of fear of COVID-19 in a sample of four South American countries. A total of 1785 people from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru participated, responding to a sociodemographic survey, the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19 S) and the Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale-COVID-19 (VCBS-COVID-19). Network analysis identified the most important symptoms of fear and conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines (nodes) and the associations between them (edges). In addition, the robustness of the network of these indicators of centrality and the possible differences in the structure and connectivity of the networks between the four countries were evaluated. The results suggest that the nodes with the highest centrality were items 2 and 5 of the FCV-19 S and item 2 of the VCBS-COVID-19. Likewise, item 6 is the belief that most predicts conspiracy beliefs about vaccines against COVID-19; while item 6 was the symptom that most predicts fear of COVID-19. The findings strongly support cross-cultural similarities in the networks across the four countries rather than differences. Although it was expected that a higher presence of symptoms of fear of COVID-19 may lead people to compensate for their fear by believing in conspiratorial ideas about vaccines and, consequently, rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine, the results do not clearly show this relationship. This could lead other researchers to generate evidence to explain the differences between Latin American countries and countries in other contexts in terms of vaccination rates. This evidence could be useful to develop policies favoring vaccination against COVID-19 that are more contextualized to the Latin American region, characterized by social instability and economic recession during the pandemic.
AB - The present study examined how conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines specifically relate to symptoms of fear of COVID-19 in a sample of four South American countries. A total of 1785 people from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru participated, responding to a sociodemographic survey, the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19 S) and the Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale-COVID-19 (VCBS-COVID-19). Network analysis identified the most important symptoms of fear and conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines (nodes) and the associations between them (edges). In addition, the robustness of the network of these indicators of centrality and the possible differences in the structure and connectivity of the networks between the four countries were evaluated. The results suggest that the nodes with the highest centrality were items 2 and 5 of the FCV-19 S and item 2 of the VCBS-COVID-19. Likewise, item 6 is the belief that most predicts conspiracy beliefs about vaccines against COVID-19; while item 6 was the symptom that most predicts fear of COVID-19. The findings strongly support cross-cultural similarities in the networks across the four countries rather than differences. Although it was expected that a higher presence of symptoms of fear of COVID-19 may lead people to compensate for their fear by believing in conspiratorial ideas about vaccines and, consequently, rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine, the results do not clearly show this relationship. This could lead other researchers to generate evidence to explain the differences between Latin American countries and countries in other contexts in terms of vaccination rates. This evidence could be useful to develop policies favoring vaccination against COVID-19 that are more contextualized to the Latin American region, characterized by social instability and economic recession during the pandemic.
KW - Conspiracy beliefs
KW - Fear of COVID
KW - Network analysis
KW - Vaccines
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85137521439&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12144-022-03622-w
DO - 10.1007/s12144-022-03622-w
M3 - Artículo
AN - SCOPUS:85137521439
SN - 1046-1310
VL - 43
SP - 14037
EP - 14052
JO - Current Psychology
JF - Current Psychology
IS - 15
ER -
