Screening for Internet Addiction: An Empirical Study on Cut‐off Points for the Chen Internet Addiction Scale

Abstract

The aim of this study was to establish the optimal cut-off points of the Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS), to screen for and diagnose Internet addiction among adolescents in the community by using the well-established diagnostic criteria of Internet addiction. This survey of 454 adolescents used screening (57/58) and diagnostic (63/64) cut-off points of the CIAS, a self-reported instrument, based on the results of systematic diagnostic interviews by psychiatrists. The area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic curve revealed that CIAS has good diagnostic accuracy (89.6%). The screening cut-off point had high sensitivity (85.6%) and the diagnostic cut-off point had the highest diagnostic accuracy, classifying 87.6% of participants correctly. Accordingly, the screening point of the CIAS could provide a screening function in two-stage diagnosis, and the diagnostic point could serve as a diagnostic criterion in one-stage massive epidemiologic research.

The Problematic Internet Entertainment Use Scale for Adolescents: Prevalence of Problem Internet Use in Spanish High School Students

“…31 Having established the statistically highest cut-off points for PIU prevalence, the rates of problematic Internet entertainment use and potential PIU in these Spanish adolescents were found to be 5 percent and 20.5 percent, respectively, which are within the prevalence range reported in adolescent epidemiological studies. 23,27,28,53 The prevalence of potential PIU was similar to that obtained with the CIAS, 24,35,37,41,48,59 which seems to be the best IUD scale for use with adolescents; perhaps it could be considered as a gold standard.…”

“…Fourth, it was not possible to validate the scale with a clinical sample, this being a limitation of all the studies reviewed, except those concerning the CIAS. 24,35 Despite the above limitations, the PIEUSA does present similar psychometric properties to other IUD scales, showing a high reliability and acceptable validity. 16,74 Furthermore, it fills a gap in the literature by addressing one of the most prominent issues in this field: assessing levels of problem use of online entertainment among adolescents.…”

“…This cross-sectional study applied an ad hoc paper and pencil questionnaire organized into three sections: 1) sociodemographic data (gender, age, family, substance consumption, and other hobbies); 2) patterns of Internet use (computer owner, user, age at first use, preferred online entertainments, self-rating of expertise from 1 inexpert to 5 very expert, frequency [days per week], duration [average length of a regular session], longest session [maximum time connected in minutes], and perceived effect, which was assessed by asking adolescents [using yes-no questions, plus three dichotomous items 67 ] whether they considered that Internet might affect them in any way); and 3) the PIEUSA, which was constructed using three sources: a text revision of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for substance dependence and pathological gambling disorders in adults; the diagnostic criteria proposed for IUD in adults and adolescents, 1,4,24,35,68,69 and the literature on adolescent IUD prevalence. The scale contains 30 items rated on a seven-point Likert scale, from 1, strongly disagree, to 7, strongly agree.…”

“…The first is through the score on a specific scale: for example, it is diagnosed in subjects with five of the eight diagnostic criteria on the YDQ 34,40,44,47,52,64,65 ; or on the CIAS, it is diagnosed with a minimum score of 63/64. 35,37,41,48,59 A second approach would be to extract categories using percentiles (P), such as the 75 P 24 or 95 P…”

Internet Addiction: A Systematic Review of Epidemiological Research for the Last Decade

“…The internal consistency of the scale was found to be good, with Cronbach's alpha values between .79 to .93 for the respective subscales [36]. It has also been reported that the screening cut-off of 57/58 points has high sensitivity, and the diagnostic cut-off point of 63/64 as performed by psychiatrists revealed the highest diagnostic accuracy with 87.6% of patients diagnosed with Internet addiction appropriately [39]. Adopted cutoff points for Internet addiction varied marginally between studies, as scores of 63/64 or 67/68 have been used as cut-offs for Internet addiction classification, without the respective authors specifying reasons for their choice, such as the instrument's factor structure.…”