Measuring addiction to internet gaming among Indian medical students: Development and preliminary psychometric properties of a new scale

• Published in: Industrial psychiatry journal Vol. 29; no. 1; pp. 33 - 37
• Main Authors: Basu, Saurav, Sharma, Pragya, Rustagi, Ruchir, Sharma, Ragini, Sharma, Nandini
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Wolters Kluwer India Pvt. Ltd 01.01.2020; Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd; Medknow Publications & Media Pvt. Ltd; Wolters Kluwer - Medknow; Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications
• Subjects: Addiction; Addictions; Analysis; behavioral addiction; Gambling; Internet; internet gaming addiction; Measurement; Medical students; Original; Principal components analysis; Quantitative psychology; Sleep; Social networks; Surveys; technological addiction; India; internet gaming addiction; technological addiction; Behavioral addiction
• ISSN: 0972-6748; 0976-2795
• DOI: 10.4103/ipj.ipj_114_20

Background: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is emerging as an important source of behavioral addiction in young people globally. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess addiction to internet gaming in medical students using a self designed research instrument. Materials and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study and enrolled 264 male and 160 female MBBS students (n = 424) in Delhi, India. The study instruments included: a 2-item Internet gaming screening questionnaire (IGSQ), a 14-item self-designed Internet gaming addiction scale (IGAS) to measure addiction-like behavior associated with multiplayer Internet gaming, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to measure sleep quality. Results: After preliminary screening, 91 male and 6 female participants were found to be multiplayer Internet gamers, and were further assessed using the 14-item IGAS. The Cronbach's alpha of the IGAS was 0.879. Principal component analysis revealed a three-component IGAS structure based on eigenvalue cutoff (>1), loading score >0.4, and inspection of the scree-plot that explained 66.71% of the total variance. The IGAS score and the average weekly gaming time of the participants showed a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.45, P < 0.001). Only 17 (4.0%) participants reported agreement/strong agreement across ≥5 domains of addiction. The mean (standard deviation) IGAS score was significantly higher in the participants reporting poor sleep quality (PQSI > 6) (P = 0.047). Conclusion: IGD has low prevalence among medical students, and the problem is negligible among female students. The 14-item IGAS, in conjunction with the 2-item IGSQ, are reliable and valid tools for the assessment of IGD.