Measuring problematic mobile phone use with adolescents: The psychometric characteristics of the Problematic Mobile Phone Use Scale-10

Problematic mobile phone use (PMPU) may be the biggest non-drug addiction of the 21st century. This requires that sound - and possibly brief - measurement instruments are available, especially for adolescents, who are particularly at-risk of PMPU. One of the most widely used short instruments to assess PMPU is the brief version of the Mobile Phone Problem Use Scale (MPPUS-10; Foester et al., 2015). However, its dimensional structure is unclear, and the growth of PMPU among youth requires to deeply test the MMPUS-10 psychometric functioning with adolescents. The goal of the present study was to investigate the psychometric proprieties of the MPPUS-10 in adolescents, by particularly focusing on dimensionality, and analysing reliability and validity. Participants were 686 adolescents (63% males, Mage = 17.08) attending high school in Italy. By referring to the unidimensional construct of behavioural addictions, through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the undimensionality of the MPPUS-10 was supported (CFI = .94, RMSEA = .07), and corroborated by a multi-group cross-validation analysis. The internal consistency of the scale was good (Cronbach’s α = .82; McDonald’s ω = .82). As regards validity, the MPPUS-10 total score resulted to be significantly correlated with time spent on the mobile phone (r = .38) and risky use of the mobile phone (r = .28), and also with Internet addiction (r = .54) and Gaming Disorder (r = .40) symptoms. Overall, findings provide support for the adequacy of using the MPPUS-10 in adolescents to assess PMPU.