The conception, content validation, and test-retest reliability of the Questionnaire for Screen Time of Adolescents (QueST)

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the content validity and the test-retest reliability of the Questionnaire for Screen Time of Adolescents (QueST). METHODS: A study was conducted with high school adolescents from Southern Brazil enrolled in public education (2019). The QueST measures screen time across five constructs: studying, working/internship-related activities, watching videos, playing games, using social media/chat applications. Content validation involved consulting with experts and adolescents to evaluate whether the five constructs were clear and representing screen time behaviors, all ratings were quantified. The experts’ evaluation provided Content Validity Indexes (CVI) for clarity and representativeness of the questionnaire. Students answered the QueST twice (1-week apart), and differences between applications were verified. Test-retest reliability was assessed using Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) and Bland-Altman analyses. RESULTS: Among the experts, the CVI indicated 94% and 98% of clarity and representativeness, respectively. All items were highly clear for at least 70% of the students. Test-retest reliability was assessed with 104 students (16.3 ± 1.02 years; 66.3% girls). The ICC ranged from 0.41 (95%CI 0.24–0.56) for videos to 0.76 (95%CI 0.66–0.83) for social media/chat applications on weekdays; and from 0.24 (95%CI 0.04–0.41) for videos to 0.67 (95%CI 0.54–0.77) for social media/chat applications on weekends. The lowest mean difference was -4.6 min for working on weekdays, while the highest was 40.6 min for videos on weekends. CONCLUSIONS: The QueST proved to be fair to excellent for measuring different screen time constructs. However, the item of videos (weekends) showed poor stability. The QueST demonstrates satisfactory content validity attested by the experts and adolescents.