Desarrollo y validación de una escala para evaluar el estigma social relacionado a la COVID-19 (ESSCOVID-19) en estudiantes universitarios peruanos

The objective of the research is to develop an instrument with adequate psychometric properties that measures the social stigma related to COVID-19. It is an instrumental investigation, where 1353 university students were evaluated, aged between 16 and 50 years (M = 21.6, SD = 4.5), 69.2% women and 30.8% men. Validity was assessed using Eyken's V; an exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) where 16 items grouped into three factors were extracted and for the confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) four models were tested, being the one with three factors, from the EFA the one that presented the best adjustment indices. The reliability obtained with Cronbach's Alpha for fears was .68, prejudices .66 and discrimination .73; with MacDonald's Omega it was .76, .74, and .74, respectively. It is concluded that the scale has adequate psychometric characteristics for the assessment of social stigma towards COVID-19.