Psychometric evaluation of the Arabic version of the nomophobia questionnaire: confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis--implications from a pilot study in Kuwait among university students

Background: In the past decades, thanks to the widespread use of the new information and communication technologies, nomophobia has emerged as a contemporary psychological disorder. More in detail, it has been defined as the modern fear of feeling disconnected, being out of mobile phone contact, and...

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Published in:Psychology research and behavior management 2020-03, p.471
Main Authors: Al-Balhan, Eisa M, Khabbache, Hicham, Watfa, Ali, Re, Tania Simona, Zerbetto, Riccardo, Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Additives
Analysis
College students
Mental disorders
Social networks
Students
Surveys
Technology
Wireless telephones
Youth
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Summary:Background: In the past decades, thanks to the widespread use of the new information and communication technologies, nomophobia has emerged as a contemporary psychological disorder. More in detail, it has been defined as the modern fear of feeling disconnected, being out of mobile phone contact, and being unable to access information and/or communicate with others. Few authors have used an Arabic version of the Nomophobia Questionnaire, even though its psychometric properties are not well known and have been poorly investigated from a formal rigorous standpoint. Materials and methods: Our research objective was to develop and validate the Arabic version, administering it to a sample of adolescents and young adults in a country characterized by a high mobile network coverage. A total of 512 subjects (aged 21.62[+ or -]4.33 years, median 20 years), equally distributed between males and females, and based in Kuwait, volunteered to take part in the study. Results: The confirmatory factor analysis did not show a completely satisfactory fitting with the original factor structure. The exploratory factor analysis showed that four factors had 57.24% variance. Overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.879. However, the coefficient increased from 0.645 to 0.849 with respect to the original factor structure. Scores (and mean scores) were 4.25[+ or -]1.59 (21.23[+ or -]7.95), 2.95[+ or -]1.33 (17.68[+ or -]7.97), 4.48[+ or -]1.78 (8.96[+ or -]3.56), and 4.98[+ or -]1.52 (34.84[+ or -]10.67) for factors I, II, III, and I V, respectively, whereas the overall score (and mean overall score) was 4.14[+ or -]1.13 (82.71[+ or -]22.68). Conclusion: In our sample, no subject (0.0%) was without nomophobia, with 92 (18.0%) and 288 individuals (56.2%) reporting mild and moderate nomophobia levels, respectively. Approximately a quarter of the recruited sample (132 subjects, 25.8%) had severe nomophobia level. Keywords: Nomophobia, questionnaire, psychometric properties, Arabic language, confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis
ISSN:1179-1578
1179-1578
DOI:10.2147/PRBM.S179503