Psychometric validation of the Persian nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form: Does gender and hours spent online gaming affect the interpretations of item descriptions?

Abstract

Background and aimsThe nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form (IGDS-SF9) is brief and effective to evaluate Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) severity. Although its scores show promising psychometric properties, less is known about whether different groups of gamers interpret the items similarly. This study aimed to verify the construct validity of the Persian IGDS-SF9 and examine the scores in relation to gender and hours spent online gaming among 2,363 Iranian adolescents.MethodsConfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis were used to examine the construct validity of the IGDS-SF9. The effects of gender and time spent online gaming per week were investigated by multigroup CFA and Rasch differential item functioning (DIF).ResultsThe unidimensionality of the IGDS-SF9 was supported in both CFA and Rasch. However, Item 4 (fail to control or cease gaming activities) displayed DIF (DIF contrast = 0.55) slightly over the recommended cutoff in Rasch but was invariant in multigroup CFA across gender. Items 4 (DIF contrast = −0.67) and 9 (jeopardize or lose an important thing because of gaming activity; DIF contrast = 0.61) displayed DIF in Rasch and were non-invariant in multigroup CFA across time spent online gaming.ConclusionsGiven the Persian IGDS-SF9 was unidimensional, it is concluded that the instrument can be used to assess IGD severity. However, users of the instrument are cautioned concerning the comparisons of the sum scores of the IGDS-SF9 across gender and across adolescents spending different amounts of time online gaming.

Psychometric validation of the Turkish nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale–Short Form (IGDS9-SF)

“…The IGDS9-SF provided a valid and reliable measure of IGD with excellent diagnostic accuracy that can be used in for research and for diagnostic purposes among young adult male and female gamers. Overall, the results obtained in the present study corroborated prior validity studies on the IGDS9-SF (Monacis et al, 2016;Pontes and Griffiths, 2015;Wu et al, 2017).…”

“…The results of the EFA and CFA yielded statistically significant and relatively high factor loadings, further demonstrating that all items were adequate indicators of the IGD construct and that the scale had adequate psychometric properties, alongside a solid factor structure. In the original study, the IGDS9-SF showed adequate reliability (α = 0.87), whereas Cronbach's alphas ranged between 0.87 and 0.96 in subsequent studies (Monacis et al, 2016;Pontes et al, 2017;Wu et al, 2017). Consistent with these reliability findings previously reported, the Turkish version obtained similar for the newly developed IGDS9-SF (α = 0.89).…”

“…Although a relatively high number of standardized assessment tools to assess IGD have been recently developed, the IGDS9-SF, which was developed to be utilized in large-scale surveys, has been extensively utilized in several countries and employed in a number of research studies given its excellent psychometric properties and conciseness to assess IGD in time-limited research. More specifically, the IGDS9-SF has been developed and adapted to different languages, such as: English (Pontes and Griffiths, 2015 ;Pontes et al, 2017), Slovenian , Portuguese , Italian (Monacis et al, 2016), and Persian (Wu et al, 2017). Although these international studies utilizing the IGDS9-SF have not directly estimated mean scores of IGD across different populations investigated due to their exclusive psychometric focus, these studies have provided key insights on the diagnosis and measurement of IGD.…”

“…First, it was directly developed using the nine criteria of IGD defined by DSM-5, thus making the 6 scores obtained by participants assessed with this tool useful to clinicians when diagnosing disordered gaming (Wu et al, 2017). Second, the IGDS-SF9 is quick to administer because it contains only nine items, potentially helping clinicians in busy clinical settings.…”

“…Second, the IGDS-SF9 is quick to administer because it contains only nine items, potentially helping clinicians in busy clinical settings. Although most of the previous IGDS9-SF validation studies were carried out among Western populations (e.g., Pontes and Griffiths, 2015;Monacis et al, 2016), one study has been recently conducted to develop the Persian version of the IGDS9-SF (Wu et al, 2017). Petry et al (2014) suggested that "establishing the psychometric properties of instruments assessing these nine [IGD] criteria should begin using a cross-cultural perspective", and because gaming behavior may differ across cultures, studies examining the psychometric properties of the IGDS9-SF in distinct countries around the world are needed ).…”