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 inPsychology research and behavior management p. 471
Main Authors Al-Balhan, Eisa M, Khabbache, Hicham, Watfa, Ali, Re, Tania Simona, Zerbetto, Riccardo, Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dove Medical Press Limited 01.03.2020
Subjects
Additives
Analysis
College students
Mental disorders
Social networks
Students
Surveys
Technology
Wireless telephones
Youth
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
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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