Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar;30(2):402-413.
doi: 10.1177/10731911211055435. Epub 2021 Nov 2.

Measuring Internet Gaming Disorder and Gaming Disorder: A Qualitative Content Validity Analysis of Validated Scales

Veli-Matti Karhulahti  1 , Marcel Martončik  2   3 , Matúš Adamkovič  2   3   4
Affiliations

Measuring Internet Gaming Disorder and Gaming Disorder: A Qualitative Content Validity Analysis of Validated Scales

Veli-Matti Karhulahti et al. Assessment. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

Numerous instruments have been developed to measure gaming-related health problems based on "internet gaming disorder" (IGD) in the third section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) and "gaming disorder" (GD) in the International Classification of Diseases (11th rev.). However, the criteria in the manuals tend to be operationalized in numerous diverse ways, which can make screening outcomes incomparable. A content validity analysis is needed to reassess the relationships between the diagnostic criteria and the items that operationalize them. The IGD and GD criteria were divided into sematic components. A qualitative content validity analysis was carried out for all items employed by the 17 instruments that claim to measure either construct by their criteria in English. In all but one instrument, the operationalizations did not include all criterion components. There were two main reasons found for this: the components had simply been left out or had been alternatively modified into other components. Criteria that were vaguely described in the manuals were sources of lower content validity items. The study implies that many of the problems in IGD and GD measurement derive from criteria operationalization and original manual descriptions. The conclusion provides practical recommendations that researchers can apply to improve the content validity of their measurement.

Keywords: addiction; content validity; gaming disorder; qualitative assessment; semantic analysis; technology use.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Adam D. (2013). Mental health: On the spectrum. Nature, 496(7446), 416–418. 10.1038/496416a - DOI - PubMed
    1. Adamkovič M., Martončik M., Lačný M., Kačmárová M. (2020). Poverty in behavioral research: Different operationalizations, different results. 10.31234/osf.io/4ek5y - DOI
    1. Aiken L. R. (1980). Content validity and reliability of single items or questionnaires. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 40(4), 955–959. 10.1177/001316448004000419 - DOI
    1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
    1. Balhara Y. P. S., Singh S., Saini R., Kattula D., Chukkali S., Bhargava R. (2020). Development and validation of gaming disorder and hazardous gaming scale (GDHGS) based on the WHO framework (ICD-11 criteria) of disordered gaming. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 54, Article 102348. 10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102348 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types