Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire: An Exploratory Study Using a Sample of Convicted Sex Offenders

Abstract

We would like to acknowledge the support of Xavier-Andoni Tibau Alberdi, for his valuable methodological and statistical advice. We further thank the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions (Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs) for authorizing this research. Data availability statement:Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available. Online sexual addiction among adult males convicted of a sexual offenseABSTRACT. Research has suggested that, in some cases, sexual offending might be a manifestation of an uncontrolled or compulsive online sexual activity, which may be conceptualized as a behavioral addiction. To deal with the lack of validated instruments to assess online sexual addiction, this study tested the psychometric properties of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire (OSA-Q). To this end, a total of 100 men convicted of a sexual offense completed the Spanish version of the OSA-Q, along with the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) for the assessment of related areas of impairment. Once individuals with social desirability response bias (n = 34) were extracted from the sample, the exploratory factor analysis yielded a four-factor structure explaining 77.06% of the variance for the OSA-Q. Additionally, internal consistency of the total score was strong (α = .97), and correlations with related clinical scales were significant. Overall, individuals convicted of online sexual offenses showed significantly higher scores on the OSA-Q than contact-exclusive offenders. These results justify the use of the OSA-Q (if accompanied by a valid assessment of social desirability response bias) in the screening of online sexual addiction in Spanish forensic samples, which might, in turn, improve existing risk management plans.