Development and validation of the smartphone addiction risk children questionnaire (SARCQ)

Stella Conte; Carla Ghiani; Eraldo Nicotra; Andrea Bertucci; Roberto Truzoli

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e08874

Development and validation of the smartphone addiction risk children questionnaire (SARCQ)

Heliyon. 2022 Jan 31;8(2):e08874. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e08874. eCollection 2022 Feb.

Authors

Stella Conte¹, Carla Ghiani¹, Eraldo Nicotra¹, Andrea Bertucci¹, Roberto Truzoli²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Education, Psychology, Philosophy, University of Cagliari, Italy.
² Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences "Luigi Sacco", University of Milan, Italy.

Abstract

Smartphone abuse interferes with all activities in daily life. Young people who tend to have a smartphone addiction (SA) also have social, familiar and academic problems. Furthermore, smartphone provides immediate access to communication as well as avoids experiencing social anxiety. This research aims to evaluate the factorial structure of Smartphone Addiction Risk Children Questionnaire (SARCQ), a specific questionnaire created to assess the risk of SA in primary school children (8-11 years). An exploratory factor analysis before and a confirmatory factor analysis after were performed in order to establish the factorial structure of the questionnaire. Results showed a two-factor structure explaining 49.30% of total variance. The outstanding dimensions are: "I'm not afraid with you" (INAWY) and "Linus blanket" (LB). SARCQ will be useful to assess the risk of SA in childhood in order to operate early effective therapeutic interventions.

Keywords: C.F.A; Childhood; New technology; Questionnaire; SARCQ; Smartphone addiction.