Open AccessPsychometric Properties of Young’s Internet Addiction Test in Nigeria
Author(s) -
Bede Chiye Akpunne,
Ebenezer Olutope Akinnawo,
Oluseyi Abiodun Alakija,
Daniel Oluwasanmi Kumuyi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of high risk behaviors and addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.266
H-Index - 13
ISSN - 2251-8711
DOI - 10.5812/ijhrba.91968
Subject(s) - cronbach's alpha , nigerians , psychology , addiction , population , concurrent validity , clinical psychology , scale (ratio) , the internet , test (biology) , psychometrics , psychiatry , medicine , internal consistency , environmental health , geography , world wide web , cartography , paleontology , political science , computer science , law , biology
Background: In 2018, the Nigerian Communication Commission affirmed that more than 100 million Nigerians made use of the Internet. A good percentage of internet usage is maladaptive. A valid, reliable, and socio-culturally sensitive assessment instrument is essential to study internet usage patterns in Nigeria. Young’s Internet Addiction test (IAT) has been validated in many countries, but not in Nigeria. Objectives: This study aimed to validate IAT to determine psychometric properties acceptable in a Nigerian population. Materials and Methods: A total of 184 Nigerian University undergraduates (77 males and 107 females), mean age = 20.5, were purposively drawn, and they responded to IAT, the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), and the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS). Results: The Cronbach’s α of the six IAT factors ranged from 0.25 (anticipation) to 0.69 (salience). The observed overall Cronbach’s α coefficient of 0.79 was obtained for IAT. The corrected item-total correlations ranged from 0.73 to 0.84. The concurrent validity score was observed to be r = 0.54 between IAT and SAS-SV and r = 0.58 between IAT and BFAS. A significant positive correlation was equally observed between the IAT and BFAS factors, ranging from conflict (r = 0.322, P = 0.000) to relapse (r = 0.488, P = 0.000). The new norm determined for IAT in the Nigerian population was ≥ 38.5 for males and ≥ 40.8 for females. Conclusions: IAT is gender-sensitive and has acceptable psychometric properties for the Nigerian population.