Psychometric Validation of the Internet Disorder Scale–Short Form in an Italian Adult Sample

Research examining online addictions has conceptualized generalized internet addiction as an “umbrella” term comprising the addictive use of various online activities such as gambling, gaming, pornograpgy consumption shopping, and social media use. This has led to the development of many different psychometric instruments to assess specific forms of online addiction as well as ones that assess disordered internet use more generally. One such scale is the nine-item short-form Internet Disorder Scale (IDS9-SF) based on the DSM-5 criteria for internet gaming disorder. Although the IDS9-SF has been validated in a number of languages, it has not been validated into Italian. Therefore, the present study validated the IDS9-SF utilizing an Italian-speaking sample (N = 1477). Data were initially collected from 963 participants and the sample was equally split to carry out exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the Italian IDS9-SF. Results showed that two items were problematic (i.e., in terms of asymmetry and kurtosis) so a slightly modified Italian IDS9-SF was developed (modifying the two items). Data were then collected from a further 514 participants to test the modified Italian IDS9-SF. The second sample was again equally split, and EFA and CFA were carried out. The modified Italian IDS9-SF was found to be a psychometrically robust measure for assessing the risk of internet disorder among Italian adults.