AUTHOR=Pérez Sánchez Beatriz , Burgos Padilla Juan José , Alveal-Álamos Carolina , Concha-Salgado Andrés , Jara Sepúlveda Luisa , Rodríguez Díaz Francisco Javier 

TITLE=Design and study of psychometric properties of the Community Attitude to Abortion Scale (CAAS) with the Chilean population: Autonomy and Stigma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1008492

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1008492

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>Attitudes toward abortion are related to structural, cultural, and direct gender-based violence. This violence can affect women’s mental, physical and reproductive health. Therefore, it is essential to know the nature of community attitudes toward abortion. Since we currently do not have an instrument that measures attitudes towards abortion in Chile, we set the objective of this study to design the <italic>Community Attitude to Abortion Scale (CAAS)</italic> and analyze its psychometric properties in a Chilean community population.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>This work is an instrumental design study. Using a sampling of panelists by sociodemographic quotas, we obtained a sample of 1,223 participants with a mean age of 36.7 years (<italic>SD</italic> = 13.56).</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>As a result, we obtained a scale of 18 items and two correlated factors, <italic>Autonomy</italic> and <italic>Stigma</italic>. This structure fits better as an Exploratory Structural Equations Model (ESEM). Both factors have excellent internal consistency. In addition, we obtained evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity: The scores on the factors of the Universal Religious Involvement Scale (I-E12) correlated negatively with <italic>Autonomy</italic> and positively with <italic>Stigma</italic>; participants with low levels of identification with a right-wing political orientation, with high levels of identification with a leftwing, pro-feminist, pro-LGBTQ +, and pro-euthanasia political orientation, obtained higher mean scores on <italic>Autonomy</italic> and lower on <italic>Stigma</italic>.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>The CAAS is an adequate tool for use with the Chilean community population, with evidence of consistency and validity. La CAAS is the first tool to measure attitudes to abortion in this country.</p></sec>