Psychometric Properties of Young’s Internet Addiction Test in Nigeria

Abstract

Background: In 2018, the Nigerian Communication Commission affirmed that more than 100 million Nigerians made use of the Internet. A good percentage of internet usage is maladaptive. A valid, reliable, and socio-culturally sensitive assessment instrument is essential to study internet usage patterns in Nigeria. Young’s Internet Addiction test (IAT) has been validated in many countries, but not in Nigeria. Objectives: This study aimed to validate IAT to determine psychometric properties acceptable in a Nigerian population. Materials and Methods: A total of 184 Nigerian University undergraduates (77 males and 107 females), mean age = 20.5, were purposively drawn, and they responded to IAT, the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), and the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS). Results: The Cronbach’s α of the six IAT factors ranged from 0.25 (anticipation) to 0.69 (salience). The observed overall Cronbach’s α coefficient of 0.79 was obtained for IAT. The corrected item-total correlations ranged from 0.73 to 0.84. The concurrent validity score was observed to be r = 0.54 between IAT and SAS-SV and r = 0.58 between IAT and BFAS. A significant positive correlation was equally observed between the IAT and BFAS factors, ranging from conflict (r = 0.322, P = 0.000) to relapse (r = 0.488, P = 0.000). The new norm determined for IAT in the Nigerian population was ≥ 38.5 for males and ≥ 40.8 for females. Conclusions: IAT is gender-sensitive and has acceptable psychometric properties for the Nigerian population.

Internet Addiction and Its Associated Factors Among African High School and University Students: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Literature shows that different factors predispose adolescents to internet addiction: including urban residence, presence of internet at home (Effat et al, 2019 ; Abd El-Mawgood et al, 2021 ), gender (Akpunne et al, 2020 ; Nyaga, 2020 ), spending more hours on the internet (Abd et al, 2017 ; Fantaw, 2021 ; Kapus et al, 2021 ), using internet for entertainment, pornography and online gaming (Seo et al, 2009 ; Asrese and Muche, 2020 ; Zenebe et al, 2020 ), and substance use (Tran et al, 2017 ; Zenebe et al, 2020 ; Kapus et al, 2021 ).…”

Internet addiction and associated factors among undergraduate students of Jimma university; Jimma South West Ethiopia. Institutional Based cross-sectional Study

“…The Youngs internet addiction test was used for the collection of data regarding the components of internet addiction (YIAT). With an overall alpha coe cient of 0.79, this scale has been widely used for screening and measuring the level of internet addiction among Nigerian university students (33). Internal consistency was high in the current study (Cronbach's = 0.885).…”

“…For "Does Not Apply," "Occasionally," "Frequently," "Often," and "Always," the items were scored 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. Subjects would be classi ed as normal (0-30), mild (31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49), moderate , or severe (80-100) internet addicts based on their scores (34). Since there is no gold standard for differentiating between IA and non-IA, we considered those with mild, moderate, or severe Internet addiction to have Internet addiction.…”

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Internet Addiction among Clinical Medical Students of a Nigerian Private University

“…Young initially developed an 8-question Internet Addiction Diagnostic Questionnaire (DQ) based on DSM IV [20]. Later, she included 12 new items in addition to the 8 items to formulate an Internet Addiction Test (IAT) [21].The psychometric properties of Young's IAT has been tested in Nigeria [22].…”