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Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory

The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) is widely used, but psychometric evidence by applying Item Response Theory (IRT) is lacking. Considering the advantages of this psychometric approach, the aim of study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the BFAS among a...

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Autores principales: Primi, Caterina, Fioravanti, Giulia, Casale, Silvia, Donati, Maria Anna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33799401
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062979
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author Primi, Caterina
Fioravanti, Giulia
Casale, Silvia
Donati, Maria Anna
author_facet Primi, Caterina
Fioravanti, Giulia
Casale, Silvia
Donati, Maria Anna
author_sort Primi, Caterina
collection PubMed
description The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) is widely used, but psychometric evidence by applying Item Response Theory (IRT) is lacking. Considering the advantages of this psychometric approach, the aim of study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the BFAS among adolescents and young adults. Participants were 1134 (50% males, Mean age = 20.7, SD = 3.5, range = 14–33 years) Italian high school students and undergraduates. The unidimensionality of the scale was confirmed (χ(2)/df = 2.8, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, and RMSEA = 0.04 [C.I. = 0.02–0.06]) and IRT analysis showed that the scale assesses medium and high levels of the trait, and that it is useful in order to discriminate different levels of Problematic Facebook use (PFU) within this range of trait, in which the scale is sufficiently informative. The relationships of BFAS θ scores with theoretically related constructs provided support to the validity of the scale. In accordance with previous studies, BFAS scores were positively correlated with Problematic Internet use and problematic Social Network use, negatively correlated with self-esteem, and positively related to loneliness. The Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis showed that BFAS is invariant across gender, and only one item had uniform and small-in-size DIF. Additionally, we tested age invariance. Since only 17% of the BFAS items were non-invariant, we determined that the BFAS exhibited minor non-invariance as a whole. An analysis of the adequacy of the polythetic and monothetic criteria to define the range of the trait indicative of problematic use was also conducted. Overall, this study offers evidence that BFAS is a valuable and useful scale for measuring high levels of PFU among Italian adolescents and young adults.
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spelling pubmed-80015072021-03-28 Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory Primi, Caterina Fioravanti, Giulia Casale, Silvia Donati, Maria Anna Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS) is widely used, but psychometric evidence by applying Item Response Theory (IRT) is lacking. Considering the advantages of this psychometric approach, the aim of study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the BFAS among adolescents and young adults. Participants were 1134 (50% males, Mean age = 20.7, SD = 3.5, range = 14–33 years) Italian high school students and undergraduates. The unidimensionality of the scale was confirmed (χ(2)/df = 2.8, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, and RMSEA = 0.04 [C.I. = 0.02–0.06]) and IRT analysis showed that the scale assesses medium and high levels of the trait, and that it is useful in order to discriminate different levels of Problematic Facebook use (PFU) within this range of trait, in which the scale is sufficiently informative. The relationships of BFAS θ scores with theoretically related constructs provided support to the validity of the scale. In accordance with previous studies, BFAS scores were positively correlated with Problematic Internet use and problematic Social Network use, negatively correlated with self-esteem, and positively related to loneliness. The Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis showed that BFAS is invariant across gender, and only one item had uniform and small-in-size DIF. Additionally, we tested age invariance. Since only 17% of the BFAS items were non-invariant, we determined that the BFAS exhibited minor non-invariance as a whole. An analysis of the adequacy of the polythetic and monothetic criteria to define the range of the trait indicative of problematic use was also conducted. Overall, this study offers evidence that BFAS is a valuable and useful scale for measuring high levels of PFU among Italian adolescents and young adults. MDPI 2021-03-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8001507/ /pubmed/33799401 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062979 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Primi, Caterina
Fioravanti, Giulia
Casale, Silvia
Donati, Maria Anna
Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory
title Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory
title_full Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory
title_fullStr Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory
title_full_unstemmed Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory
title_short Measuring Problematic Facebook Use among Adolescents and Young Adults with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale: A Psychometric Analysis by Applying Item Response Theory
title_sort measuring problematic facebook use among adolescents and young adults with the bergen facebook addiction scale: a psychometric analysis by applying item response theory
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001507/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33799401
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062979
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