French validation of the internet addiction test

Abstract

The main goal of the present study is to investigate the psychometric properties of a French version of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and to assess its relationship with both time spent on Internet and online gaming. The French version of the Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT) was administered to a sample of 246 adults. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses were carried out. We discovered that a one-factor model of the IAT has good psychometric properties and fits the data well, which is not the case of a six-factor model as found in previous studies using exploratory methods. Correlation analysis revealed positive significant relationships between IAT scores and both the daily duration of Internet use and the fact of being an online player. In addition, younger people scored higher on the IAT. The one-factor model found in this study has to be replicated in other IAT language versions.