Psychometric Properties of the Youth Pornography Addiction Screening Tool

BACKGROUND: Addiction to pornography in the virtual world can seriously affect the mental, psychological, social, and family health of individuals and easy access to the Internet and cyberspace has intensified addiction to virtual pornography. Knowledge of the status of phenomena requires an accurate and scientific measurement tool with appropriate validity and reliability, so this study was conducted with the aim to study the Youth Pornography Addiction Screening Tool (YPAST). METHODS: This study was carried out using the descriptive-exploratory method. The statistical population of the study included all students aged 18 to 30 years studying in the universities of Hamadan, Iran, in the academic year 2020-2021. Using stratified random sampling method, 480 individuals were selected from Bu-Ali Sina University, Islamic Azad University, and Payame Noor University of Hamadan Province. To collect data, the YPAST was utilized. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Varimax rotation, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to analyze the data. FINDINGS: The YPAST consists of the 3 components of lack of control over pornographic behavior, regret after pornography use, and pornography for sexual arousal. These 3 factors together explained 61.16% of the total variance of pornography addiction in cyberspace, with the first, second, and third factors explaining 22.98%, 21.79%, and 16.39% of the variance, respectively. The CFA results showed that the scale items were of appropriate factor loads and higher than 0.40 on each factor, and the study measurement model in the first and second order factor analysis was of an acceptable fit. Therefore, the YPAST had an appropriate and acceptable structural validity among young people. The total validity coefficient of the YPAST was 0.88 and that of the first, second, and third factors were 0.94, 0.93 and 0.88, respectively. The YPAST has 3 factors. CONCLUSION: The YPAST can be a powerful and accurate tool for measuring youth pornography addiction and it can be used with confidence in various situations to measure youth virtual pornography addiction. In addition, it seems that the scale items have a proper coherence and fluency, which, as a unified and integrated set of different aspects, can measure virtual pornography addiction among young people with high accuracy.