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The study aimed to validate the Jenkins Sleep Scale (JSS-4) in six Spanish-Speaking countries. A total of 1726 people participated and were distributed between men (32.4%) and women (67.6%). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the unidimensional structure and high reliability of the JSS-4 overall (α = 0.85, ω = 0.81) and within each country. The invariance analysis revealed that JSS-4 exhibited complete invariance across countries, thus establishing a robust foundation for inter-group comparisons. Interestingly, a comparative analysis revealed significant differences in the average levels of sleep difficulties, with particularly high rates in Spain and Chile. Item Response Theory (IRT) showed sufficient discrimination parameters for all items, and a correlation of 0.998 between Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and IRT highlighted the robustness and reliability of the results obtained. In summary, JSS-4 exhibits strong evidence of validity and consistency in measurement invariance across the six countries., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Grief Impairment Scale (GIS) using a network psychometric model. A total of 1048 individuals from Peru and El Salvador participated. A network psychometric model was used to determine internal structure, reliability, and cross-country invariance. The results indicate that the GIS items were grouped into a single network structure through Exploratory Graph Analysis. Reliability was estimated by structural consistency, and it was found that when replicating the network structure within an empirical dimension, a single network structure was consistently obtained, and all items remained stable. Furthermore, the network structure was invariant, thus functioning similarly across the different country groups. In conclusion, the GIS presented solid psychometric evidence of validity based on its internal structure, reliability, and cross-country invariance. Therefore, the GIS is a psychometrically sound measure of functional impairment symptoms due to grief for Peruvian and Salvadoran individuals., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study aimed to characterize the network structure of pandemic grief symptoms and suicidal ideation in 2174 people from eight Latin American countries. Pandemic grief and suicidal ideation were measured using the Pandemic Grief Scale and a single item, respectively. Network analysis provides an in-depth characterization of symptom-symptom interactions within mental disorders. The results indicated that, "desire to die," "apathy" and "absence of sense of life" are the most central symptoms in a pandemic grief symptom network; therefore, these symptoms could be focal elements for preventive and treatment efforts. Suicidal ideation, the wish to die, and the absence of meaning in life had the strongest relationship. In general, the network structure did not differ among the participating countries. It identifies specific symptoms within the network that may increase the likelihood of their co-occurrence and is useful at the therapeutic level., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The present study explored the predictive capacity of fear of COVID-19 on the intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and the influence in this relationship of conspiracy beliefs as a possible mediating psychological variable, in 13 Latin American countries. A total of 5779 people recruited through non-probabilistic convenience sampling participated. To collect information, we used the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Vaccine conspiracy beliefs Scale-COVID-19 and a single item of intention to vaccinate. A full a priori Structural Equation Model was used; whereas, cross-country invariance was performed from increasingly restricted structural models. The results indicated that, fear of COVID-19 positively predicts intention to vaccinate and the presence of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines. The latter negatively predicted intention to vaccinate against COVID-19. Besides, conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines had an indirect effect on the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and intention to vaccinate against COVID-19 in the 13 countries assessed. Finally, the cross-national similarities of the mediational model among the 13 participating countries are strongly supported. The study is the first to test a cross-national mediational model across variables in a large number of Latin American countries. However, further studies with other countries in other regions of the world are needed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Objectives: The present study aimed to evaluate the measurement invariance of a general measure of the perception of governmental responses to COVID-|19 (COVID-SCORE-10) in the general population of 13 Latin American countries., Methods: A total of 5780 individuals from 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries selected by non-probabilistic snowball sampling participated. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed and the alignment method was used to evaluate invariance. Additionally, a graded response model was used for the assessment of item characteristics., Results: The results indicate that there is approximate measurement invariance of the COVID-SCORE-10 among the participating countries. Furthermore, IRT results suggest that the COVID-SCORE-10 measures with good psychometric ability a broad spectrum of the construct assessed, especially around average levels. Comparison of COVID-SCORE-10 scores indicated that participants from Cuba, Uruguay and El Salvador had the most positive perceptions of government actions to address the pandemic. Thus, the underlying construct of perception of government actions was equivalent in all countries., Conclusion: The results show the importance of initially establishing the fundamental measurement properties and MI before inferring the cross-cultural universality of the construct to be measured., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The present study aimed to evaluate the measurement invariance of the Obsession with COVID-19 Scale (OCS) among seven Latin American countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Although the OCS has been used in several countries and languages, there is a need for approaches that better integrate the cross-cultural equivalence of the scale. A total of 3185 people participated in the study. The results indicated the presence of a unidimensional structure and good reliability indices for the OCS in each country. The alignment method indicated that the OCS is an invariant measure of COVID-19 obsession among the populations of seven Latin American countries. The findings based on IRT analysis indicated that all OCS items had adequate discrimination and difficulty parameters. The findings contribute to the understanding of the internal structure of the scale in different countries at the same time, something that has been pending evaluation., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The objective of this study was to translate and psychometrically evaluate a Spanish version of the Grief Impairment Scale (GIS) using a sample of bereaved adults from El Salvador ( N = 579). The results confirm the unidimensional structure of the GIS, and solid reliability, item characteristics, and criterion-related validity, where the GIS scale significantly and positively predicts depression. However, this instrument only showed evidence of configural and metric invariance between different sex groups. Overall, these results support the Spanish version of the GIS as a psychometrically sound screening tool for health professionals and researchers to use in their clinical work., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: There is an urgent need to assess changes in well-being on a multinational scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus culturally valid scales must be available., Methods: With this in mind, this study examined the invariance of the WHO well-being index (WHO-5) among a sample of 5183 people from 12 Latin Americans countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay)., Results: The results of the present study indicate that the WHO-5 is strictly invariant across samples from different Latin American countries. Furthermore, the results of the IRT analysis indicate that all items of the WHO-5 were highly discriminative and that the difficulty required to respond to each of the five items is ascending. Additionally, the results indicated the presence of moderate and small size differences in subjective well-being among most countries., Conclusion: The WHO-5 is useful for assessing subjective well-being in 12 Latin American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, since the differences between scores can be attributed to differences in well-being and not in other characteristics of the scale., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Thousands of people have died of COVID-19 in El Salvador. However, little is known about the mental health of those who are mourning the loss of a loved one to COVID-19. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the dysfunctional grief associated with COVID-19 death among Salvadoran adults. A sample of 435 Salvadorans (M = 29 years; SD = 8.75) who lost a family member or loved one to COVID-19 completed a digital survey using the Google Forms platform, during April 2 and 28, 2022. The results revealed that 35.1% reported clinically elevated symptoms of dysfunctional grief and among those mourners, and 25.1% also exhibited clinical levels of coronavirus anxiety. A binary logistic regression revealed that predictor variables such as COVID-19 anxiety (p = .003), depression (p = .021), and COVID-19 obsession (p = .032) were significant (χ 2  = 84.31; Nagelkerke R 2  = .242) and predict a 24.2% chance of dysfunctional bereavement., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The Purpose in Life Test (PIL) is a measure of purpose in life widely used in many cultures and countries; however, cross-cultural assessments are scarce. The present study aimed to evaluate the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the PIL in the general population of seven Latin American countries (Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay). A total of 4306 people participated, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling, where Uruguay has the highest mean age ( M = 41.8; SD = 16.6 years); while Ecuador has the lowest mean age ( M = 24.6; SD = 7.8 years). Furthermore, in each country, there is a higher proportion of women (>60%) than men (<40%). Using Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis, the factorial structure does not show evidence of invariance among the included countries. However, based on the Multi-Group Factor Analysis Alignment, there is evidence that a three-dimensional structure of the PIL (Meaning of existence, Freedom to make meaning in daily life and Will to find meaning in the face of future challenges) is the same in the participating countries. Results based on item response theory indicate that most PIL items can significantly differentiate responses according to the level of life purpose. In addition, people with low life purpose will tend to choose the lower response alternatives on the PIL; while people with higher life purpose will choose higher response alternatives. The findings indicate that the PIL has the potential to increase knowledge about how people conceive and experience their purpose in life in different countries., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Caycho-Rodríguez, Vilca, Cervigni, Gallegos, Martino, Calandra, Rey Anacona, López-Calle, Moreta-Herrera, Chacón-Andrade, Lobos-Rivera, del Carpio, Quintero, Robles, Panza Lombardo, Gamarra Recalde, Buschiazzo Figares, White and Burgos-Videla.)

The aim was to test the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the PIL-SF in a sample of people from seven Latin American countries. Additionally, the characteristics of the PIL-SF items were evaluated and to assess the relationship between purpose in life, as measured by the PIL-SF, and fear of COVID-19. A total of 4306 people from seven Latin American countries participated in the study. The results indicated that the PIL-SF is invariant in the seven participating countries and, therefore, there is evidence that the items reflect the purpose of life in the same way in all countries. This allows comparisons of purpose in life between countries that are free of bias, reflecting the true differences in how countries respond to items. From IRT, the discrimination parameters are adequate and indicate that the items cover a wide range of the purpose in life construct. The difficulty parameters are adequate and increase monotonically. This indicates that people would need a higher level of purpose in life to respond to the higher response categories. Thus, the PIL-SF items would be useful in determining people with a relatively high degree of purpose in life. Identifying people with different levels of purpose in life would allow them to be part of intervention programs, either to support those with low levels or to maintain and reinforce their purpose in life. The evidence of cross-country measurement invariance of the PIL-SF provides a measure to be used in cross-cultural studies about the meaning of life., Competing Interests: Competing InterestsThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© 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.)

Aims: Over the past 2 years, the vaccine conspiracy beliefs construct has been used in a number of different studies. These publications have assessed the determinants and outcomes of vaccine conspiracy beliefs using, in some cases, pooled data from different countries, and compared the results across these contexts. However, studies often do not consider measurement invariance as a necessary requirement for comparative analyses. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the cross-cultural MI of the COVID-19 Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale (COVID-VCBS) in 12 Latin American countries., Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis, item response theory analysis and alignment method were applied to test measurement invariance in a large number of groups., Results: The COVID-VCBS showed robust psychometric properties and measurement invariance for both factor loadings and crosstabs. Also, a higher level of acceptance of conspiracy beliefs about vaccines is necessary to respond to higher response categories. Similarly, greater acceptance of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines was related to a lower intention to be vaccinated., Conclusion: The results allow for improved understanding of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines in the countries assessed; furthermore, they provide researchers and practitioners with an invariant measure that they can use in cross-cultural studies in Latin America. However, further studies are needed to test invariance in other countries, with the goal of developing a truly international measure of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Caycho-Rodríguez, Valencia, Ventura-León, Vilca, Carbajal-León, Reyes-Bossio, White, Rojas-Jara, Polanco-Carrasco, Gallegos, Cervigni, Martino, Palacios, Moreta-Herrera, Samaniego-Pinho, Lobos-Rivera, Figares, Puerta-Cortés, Corrales-Reyes, Calderón, Tapia, Arias Gallegos and Petzold.)

Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 began to emerge immediately after the first news about the disease and threaten to prolong the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by limiting people's willingness of receiving a life-saving vaccine. In this context, this study aimed to explore the variation of conspiracy beliefs regarding COVID-19 and the vaccine against it in 5779 people living in 13 Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) according to sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, educational level and source of information about COVID-19. The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic between September 15 and October 25, 2021. The Spanish-language COVID-19 Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale (ECCV-COVID) and a sociodemographic survey were used. The results indicate that, in most countries, women, people with a lower educational level and those who receive information about the vaccine and COVID-19 from family/friends are more supportive of conspiracy ideas regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. In the case of age, the results vary by country. The analysis of the responses to each of the questions of the ECCV-COVID reveals that, in general, the countries evaluated are mostly in some degree of disagreement or indecision regarding conspiratorial beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines. The findings could help open further study which could support prevention and treatment efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Caycho-Rodríguez, Ventura-León, Valencia, Vilca, Carbajal-León, Reyes-Bossio, White, Rojas-Jara, Polanco-Carrasco, Gallegos, Cervigni, Martino, Palacios, Moreta-Herrera, Samaniego-Pinho, Lobos Rivera, Buschiazzo Figares, Puerta-Cortés, Corrales-Reyes, Calderón, Pinto Tapia, Arias Gallegos and Petzold.)

The Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) was recently developed to assess dysfunctional anxiety related to COVID-19. Although different studies reported that the CAS is psychometrically sound, it is unclear whether it is invariant across countries. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the measurement invariance of the CAS in twelve Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay). A total of 5196 people participated, with a mean age of 34.06 (SD = 26.54). Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the measurement invariance of the CAS across countries and gender. Additionally, the graded response model (GRM) was used to provide a global representation of the representativeness of the scale with respect to the COVID-19 dysfunctional anxiety construct. The unidimensional structure of the five-item CAS was not confirmed in all countries. Therefore, it was suggested that a four-item model of the CAS (CAS-4) provides a better fit across the twelve countries and reliable scores. Multigroup CFA showed that the CAS-4 exhibits scalar invariance across all twelve countries and all genders. In addition, the CAS-4 items are more informative at average and high levels of COVID-19 dysfunctional anxiety than at lower levels. According to the results, the CAS-4 is an instrument with strong cross-cultural validity and is suitable for cross-cultural comparisons of COVID-19 dysfunctional anxiety symptoms in the general population of the twelve Latin American countries evaluated., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02563-0., Competing Interests: Competing InterestNone, (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021.)

The objective was to evaluate the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) in 7 Latin American countries (Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay). The participants were 2944 people, selected through non-probability sampling for convenience, where the majority were women. Data collection occurred between 12 June and 14 September 2020. The results indicated that the model with two related factors presents a better fit to the data and has partial scalar invariance among the 7 countries. Differences in emotional and physiological reactions were observed between the countries.

The invariance of the Preventive COVID-19 Infection Behaviors Scale (PCIBS) was evaluated in 12 Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay). A total of 5183 people from the aforementioned countries participated, selected using the snowball sampling method. Measurement invariance was assessed by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) and Multi-Group Factor Analysis Alignment (CFA-MIAL). In addition, item characteristics were assessed based on Item Response Theory. The results indicate that the original five-item version of the PCIBS is not adequate; whereas a four-item version of the PCIBS (PCIBS-4) showed a good fit in all countries. Thus, using the MG-CFA method, the PCIBS-4 achieved metric invariance, while the CFA-MIAL method indicated that the PCIBS-4 shows metric and scalar invariance. Likewise, the four items present increasing difficulties and high values in the discrimination parameters. The comparison of means of the PCIBS-4 reported irrelevant differences between countries; however, Mexico and Peru presented the highest frequency of preventive behaviors related to COVID-19. It is concluded that the PCIBS-4 is a unidimensional self-report measure which is reliable and invariant across the twelve participating Latin American countries. It is expected that the findings will be of interest to social and health scientists, as well as those professionals directly involved in public health decision making., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Caycho-Rodríguez, Vilca, Valencia, Carbajal-León, Vivanco-Vidal, Saroli-Araníbar, Reyes-Bossio, White, Rojas-Jara, Polanco-Carrasco, Gallegos, Cervigni, Martino, Palacios, Moreta-Herrera, Samaniego-Pinho, Lobos-Rivera, Ferrari, Flores-Mendoza, Figares, Puerta-Cortés, Corrales-Reyes, Calderón, Tapia and Gallegos.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has gravely impacted Latin America. A model was tested that evaluated the contribution of socio-demographic factors and fear of COVID-19 on anxiety and depression in samples of residents in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, and El Salvador). A total of 4,881 individuals, selected by convenience sampling, participated in the study. Moderate and severe levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety were identified, as well as a moderate average level of fear of COVID-19. In addition, it was observed that about a quarter of the participants presented symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and a major depressive episode. Fear of COVID-19 significantly and positively predicted anxiety and depressive symptoms, whereas the effects of socio-demographic variables are generally low [χ 2 (287) = 5936.96, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.064 [0.062, 0.065]; CFI = 0.947; and SRMR = 0.050]. This suggests the need for the implementation of preventive actions in the general population of these countries, with the aim of reducing the prevalence of depressive, anxious and fearful symptoms related to COVID-19., Competing Interests: OR was employed by company Sensorium Corp. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Caycho-Rodríguez, Tomás, Vilca, Carbajal-León, Cervigni, Gallegos, Martino, Barés, Calandra, Anacona, López-Calle, Moreta-Herrera, Chacón-Andrade, Lobos-Rivera, del Carpio, Quintero, Robles, Lombardo, Recalde, Figares, White and Videla.)