Internet-Related Disorders: Development of the Short Compulsive Internet Use Scale

Abstract

The addiction treatment system only reaches a small number of individuals suffering from Internet-related disorders. Therefore, it is important to improve case detection for preventive measures and brief interventions. Existing screening instruments are often time-consuming and rarely validated using clinical criteria. The aim of this study is to develop an optimized short screening for problematic Internet use and Internet addiction (IA). A regression analysis was conducted in random subsamples of a merged sample (N = 3,040; N = 1,209) to examine the item performance of the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS). Based on the results, a short version of the CIUS was developed and compared with the original CIUS. A fully structured diagnostic interview, covering the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria for the Internet gaming disorder with a broader focus on all Internet activities, was conducted. A five-item version of the short screening performed best across the samples. Comparing the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic between the Short CIUS and the original test revealed no significant difference (AUC = 0.968; 0.977). A cutoff point of 7 turned out to perform best for case detection and yielded a sensitivity of 0.95 and a specificity of 0.87, Cronbach's alpha was 0.77. The analysis showed that the performance of the Short CIUS is just as good in detecting problematical Internet use and IA as the performance of the original CIUS. The Short CIUS provides an economical and valid instrument for the assessment of problematic Internet use and IA.

Development of a short form of the compulsive internet use scale in Switzerland

“…The unidimensional short form showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's α > 0.8 in both the learning and validation samples). The psychometric properties were in line with validations for the full scale in different countries (Dhir et al, ; Dhir et al, ) and with the seven‐item and five‐item short forms in German (Besser et al, ).…”

“…Furthermore, findings were contradictory as regards UIRT and CFA for region. Item 12 was eventually retained, also because it was kept in the German‐language short form (Besser et al, ) and the Cartierre et al () short form. Table shows the retained items.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there have been only two previous suggestions for a short form CIUS: one in France (Cartierre et al, ) and one in Germany (Besser et al, ). The eight items in our short form are all in Cartierre et al's nine‐item short form Cartierre et al (), confirming their findings.…”

“…There are little validation studies of a cutoff for CIUS. Recommendations for cutoffs go as low as 18–21 (e.g., Besser et al, ; Guertler et al, ), which may be useful for case finding for further in‐depth investigation or early interventions (low cutoff and high sensitivity). In general population studies, the aim commonly is on prevalence which may be overestimated with low cutoffs and are aimed at high specificity (Maraz, Kiraly, & Demetrovics, ).…”

“…There was no psychometric development of a short form, but only an empirical testing of a preassumed short form. In Germany, Besser et al () validated five‐item and seven‐item short forms against a clinical interview using DSM‐5 criteria with the Munich‐Composite International Diagnostic Interview (Wittchen et al, ). They used two high‐risk group samples, namely, (a) job‐seekers from an employment agency and four unemployment offices and (b) positively screened young people from two vocational schools.…”