Validation of the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short-Form (IGDS9-SF) in an Italian-speaking sample

Abstract

Background and aimsThe inclusion of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in Section III of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has increased the interest of researchers in the development of new standardized psychometric tools for the assessment of such a disorder. To date, the nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short-Form (IGDS9-SF) has only been validated in English, Portuguese, and Slovenian languages. Therefore, the aim of this investigation was to examine the psychometric properties of the IGDS9-SF in an Italian-speaking sample.Methods A total of 757 participants were recruited to the present study. Confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group analyses were applied to assess the construct validity. Reliability analyses comprised the average variance extracted, the standard error of measurement, and the factor determinacy coefficient. Convergent and criterion validities were established through the associations with other related constructs. The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to determine an empirical cut-off point.ResultsFindings confirmed the single-factor structure of the instrument, its measurement invariance at the configural level, and the convergent and criterion validities. Satisfactory levels of reliability and a cut-off point of 21 were obtained.Discussion and conclusionsThe present study provides validity evidence for the use of the Italian version of the IGDS9-SF and may foster research into gaming addiction in the Italian context.

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).…”

“…Given that a high association has been previously found in the literature between the Internet addiction and IGD, some authors have argued that IGD represents "a part of the postulated construct of Internet addiction" (Monacis et al, 2016). Thus, in the present study the YIAT-SF (Pawlikowski et al, 2013) was used to further investigate the validity of the IGDS9-SF.…”

“…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.…”

“…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 ).…”