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. 2018;16(2):393-403.
doi: 10.1007/s11469-017-9787-2. Epub 2017 Jul 18.

The Psychometric Properties of the Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS)

Sándor Csibi  1 , Mark D Griffiths  2 , Brian Cook  3 , Zsolt Demetrovics  4 , Attila Szabo  4   5
Affiliations

The Psychometric Properties of the Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS)

Sándor Csibi et al. Int J Ment Health Addict. 2018.

Abstract

The goal of the study was to validate the English version of the Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS; Csibi et al. 2016), which is a short and easy-to-use tool for screening the risk of smartphone application-based addiction. Another aim was to identify the most frequently used smartphone applications and their perceived importance by the participants. Data were collected online from 240 English-speaking volunteers, aged 18 to 69 years. The instruments used were the SABAS, the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS), the Deprivation Sensation Scale (DSS), and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Participants also ranked the importance of their most frequently used smartphone applications. The six items of the SABAS yielded one component, which accounted for 52.38% of the total variance. The internal reliability of the scale was good (Cronbach's alpha 0.81). NMP-Q was a significant predictor of SABAS, explaining 17.6% of the total variance. The regression analysis, with SABAS score as the dependent variable and NMP-Q, DSS, PHQ-9, and BSSS scores as predictors, indicated that approximately 47% of the variance in SABAS was accounted for by the predictors (R2 = 0.47). The English version of the SABAS appears to be a valid and reliable ultra-brief tool for a quick and easy assessment of smartphone application-based addiction symptoms.

Keywords: Mobile phone addiction; Moble phone dependence; Nomophobia; Smartphone addiction; Social media addiction.

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Conflict of interest statement

Compliance with Ethical StandardsPresent work was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (grant numbers 111938 and K109375).Ethical permission for the study was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Education and Psychology at Eötvös Loránd University.The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Linear regression between SABAS and NMP-Q score
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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