Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Among Iranian Adolescents: A Psychometric Study

• Published in: International journal of mental health and addiction 2019-08, Vol.17 (4), p.765-780
• Main Authors: Lin, Chung-Ying, Imani, Vida, Broström, Anders, Nilsen, Per, Fung, Xavier C. C., Griffiths, Mark D., Pakpour, Amir H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Addiction; Addictions; Adolescent; Anxiety; Bilingualism; Cellular telephones; Community and Environmental Psychology; Girls education; Health Psychology; Internet; Internet addiction; Interpreters; Likert scale; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Original Article; Psychiatry; Psychology; Public Health; Quantitative psychology; Questionnaires; Rehabilitation; Reliability; Secondary schools; Sleep; Smartphone addiction; Smartphones; Social integration; Social networks; Stress; Teenagers; User behavior; Validity
• ISSN: 1557-1874; 1557-1882; 1557-1882
• DOI: 10.1007/s11469-018-0026-2

The Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS) can be used in screening for the risk of smartphone addiction. This study aimed to validate a Persian version of the SABAS using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Rasch analysis, and latent class analysis (LCA). In a sample of 3807 Iranian adolescents, CFAs were used to confirm the factor structure of SABAS, Rasch models were used to examine the unidimensionality of SABAS, and LCAs were used to classify the adolescents in terms of application preferences and smartphone application-based addiction. The unidimensional structure of SABAS was supported by CFA and Rasch model. LCA classified the sample into three subgroups (i.e., low, medium, high) in terms of risk of smartphone addiction. This study showed the unidimensionality of the Persian SABAS with robust psychometric properties. It can be used by healthcare providers in screening for risk of addiction to smartphone applications and provide early intervention if necessary.