Authors' contributions: OL-F (principal investigator) wrote the first draft, with CD and LJ, who supported the statistical analysis and initial interpretation of the data. JB, DJK, HMP, MDG and OL-F supported the review of the second draft. JB, AS, MDG, and OL-F also supported the review of the third draft. All authors reviewed the manuscript adding comments and suggestions and oversaw the second and third drafts. All co-authors contributed to adapting the short version of the CIUS into their 3 languages, collecting data in their respective countries, and revising the subsequent versions until the final write-up of the manuscript.

The prevalence of mobile phone use across the world has increased greatly over the past two decades. Problematic Mobile Phone Use (PMPU) has been studied in relation to public health and comprises various behaviours, including dangerous, prohibited, and dependent use. These types of problematic mobile phone behaviours are typically assessed with the short version of the Problematic Mobile Phone Use Questionnaire (PMPUQ–SV). However, to date, no study has ever examined the degree to which the PMPU scale assesses the same construct across different languages. The aims of the present study were to (i) determine an optimal factor structure for the PMPUQ–SV among university populations using eight versions of the scale (i.e., French, German, Hungarian, English, Finnish, Italian, Polish, and Spanish); and (ii) simultaneously examine the measurement invariance (MI) of the PMPUQ–SV across all languages. The whole study sample comprised 3038 participants. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were extracted from the demographic and PMPUQ-SV items. Individual and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses alongside MI analyses were conducted. Results showed a similar pattern of PMPU across the translated scales. A three-factor model of the PMPUQ-SV fitted the data well and presented with good psychometric properties. Six languages were validated independently, and five were compared via measurement invariance for future cross-cultural comparisons. The present paper contributes to the assessment of problematic mobile phone use because it is the first study to provide a cross-cultural psychometric analysis of the PMPUQ-SV.

No abstract

No abstract

Introduction: Deficits in Emotion Recognition (ER) contribute significantly to poorer functional outcomes in people with schizophrenia. However, rather than reflecting a core symptom of schizophrenia, reduced ER has been suggested to reflect increased mood disorder co-morbidity and confounds of patient status such as medication. We investigated whether ER deficits are replicable in psychometrically defined schizotypy, and whether this putative association is mediated by increased negative affect.Methods: Two hundred and nine participants between the ages of 18 and 69 (66% female) were recruited from online platforms: 80% held an undergraduate qualification or higher, 44% were current students, and 46% were in current employment. Participants were assessed on psychometric schizotypy using the O-LIFE which maps onto the same symptoms structure (positive, negative, and disorganised) as schizophrenia. Negative affect was assessed using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Emotion Recognition of both positive and negative emotions was assessed using the short version of the Geneva Emotion Recognition Task (GERT-S).Results: Negative schizotypy traits predicted poorer ER accuracy to negative emotions (β = −0.192, p = 0.002) as predicted. Unexpectedly, disorganised schizotypy traits predicted improved performance to negative emotions (β = 0.256, p = 0.007) (primarily disgust). Negative affect was found to be unrelated to ER performance of either valence (both p > 0.591). No measure predicted ER accuracy of positive emotions. Positive schizotypy traits were not found to predict either positive or negative ER accuracy. However, positive schizotypy predicted increased confidence in decisions and disorganised schizotypy predicted reduced confidence in decisions.Discussion: The replication of ER deficits in non-clinical negative schizotypy suggests that the association between negative symptoms and ER deficits in clinical samples may be independent of confounds of patient status (i.e., anti-psychotic medication). The finding that this association was independent of negative affect further suggests ER deficits in patients may also be independent of mood disorder co-morbidity. This association was not demonstrated for the positive symptom dimension of the O-LIFE, which may be due to low levels of this trait in the current sample.