Psychometric Validation of the Internet Gaming Disorder-20 Test among Ecuadorian Teenagers and Young People

Abstract

Excessive internet gaming in high prevalence is a very common problem that has been increasing in recent years, especially in teenagers and university students. However, there is a lack of psychometric evaluation for Internet Gaming Disorder in the Latin American context, particularly in Ecuador. This paper aims to examine the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Internet Gaming Disorder test (IGD-20 test) in university and high school students (n=2931, Mage=15.99, 57.22% male and 42.51% female). The validation process was performed using one, two, five and six factors taking into account the Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Turkish contexts. After checking the models proposed to date, the best fit model was the one with a single factor. Using two samples according to gender (male, female), the invariance has been confirmed with an excellent internal consistency. All, α=0.94; Male, α=0.93; Female, α=0.93). Furthermore, we performed correlation analyses between the IGD-20 Test and socio-demographic variables, and finally, the IGD-20 Test applied to Ecuadorian teenagers and young people demonstrated good psychometric properties.