Parental motivated helplessness in vaccinating children against COVID-19: Its association with fear, effectiveness and willingness to vaccinate.

According to the motivated helplessness hypothesis, parental feelings of helplessness regarding vaccinating children against COVID-19 may serve a protective function against vaccine fear and hesitancy. Two correlational studies conducted among Israelis (Study 1) and an international sample (Study 2), examined whether self-reported perceived helplessness in vaccinating children may be related to lower vaccine-fear, and higher perceived vaccine-effectiveness, trust in authorities' recommendations and willingness to vaccinate. Results indicated parents who felt they had no other choice but to vaccinate their children, exhibited less vaccine-fear, higher vaccine-effectiveness and greater intentions to vaccinate. Additionally, the relationships between vaccine-helplessness, vaccine-effectiveness and willingness to vaccinate were partially mediated by vaccine-fear. In Study 2, vaccine-helplessness was found related to higher trust in authorities' recommendations, which was partially mediated by vaccine-fear. The implications of these findings for research on the psychological function of helplessness in the parental decision-making process of vaccinating children during a pandemic are discussed.

The fear of COVID-19 scale: Its structure and measurement invariance across 48 countries.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been a source of fear around the world. We asked whether the measurement of this fear is trustworthy and comparable across countries. In particular, we explored the measurement invariance and cross-cultural replicability of the widely used Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S), testing community samples from 48 countries (N = 14,558). The findings indicate that the FCV-19S has a somewhat problematic structure, yet the one-factor solution is replicable across cultural contexts and could be used in studies that compare people who vary on gender and educational level. The validity of the scale is supported by a consistent pattern of positive correlations with perceived stress and general anxiety. However, given the unclear structure of the FCV-19S, we recommend using latent factor scores, instead of raw scores, especially in cross-cultural comparisons. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).