Clinical Usefulness of a Short Version of the Internet Addiction Test to Screen for Probable Internet Addiction in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Masaru Tateno; Kazumasa Horie; Tomohiro Shirasaka; Kotaro Nanba; Eri Shiraishi; Yukie Tateno; Takahiro A Kato

doi:10.3390/ijerph20054670

Clinical Usefulness of a Short Version of the Internet Addiction Test to Screen for Probable Internet Addiction in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Mar 6;20(5):4670. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20054670.

Authors

Masaru Tateno^{1

2}, Kazumasa Horie³, Tomohiro Shirasaka⁴, Kotaro Nanba¹, Eri Shiraishi¹, Yukie Tateno¹, Takahiro A Kato³

Affiliations

¹ Tokiwa Child Development Center, Tokiwa Hospital, Tokiwa 3-1-6-1, Minami-ku, Sapporo 0050853, Japan.
² Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo Medical University, South-1, West-16, Chuo-ku, Sapporo 0608543, Japan.
³ Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Maidashi 3-1-1, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 8128582, Japan.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Teine Keijinkai Medical Center, Maeda 1-12-1-40, Teine-ku, Sapporo 0060811, Japan.

Abstract

Internet addiction (IA) is defined as the condition of being addicted to all sorts of activities on the Internet. Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), may be susceptible to IA. Early detection and intervention for probable IA are important to prevent severe IA. In this study, we investigated the clinical usefulness of a short version of the Internet Addiction Test (s-IAT) for the screening of IA among autistic adolescents. The subjects were 104 adolescents with a confirmed diagnosis of ASD. They were requested to answer 20 questions from the original Internet Addiction Test (IAT). In the data analysis process, we comparatively calculated the sum of scores to the 12 questions of s-IAT. In total, 14 of the 104 subjects were diagnosed as having IA based on the face-to-face clinical interview that was regarded as the gold standard. Statistical analysis suggested that the optimal cut-off for s-IAT was at 35. When we applied the cut-off of 70 on the IAT, only 2 of 14 subjects (14.3%) with IA were screened positive, whereas 10 (71.4%) of them were screened by using the cut-off point of 35 on s-IAT. The s-IAT might be useful for the screening of IA in adolescents with ASD.

Keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; autism spectrum disorder; behavioral addiction; gaming disorder; internet addiction; internet addiction test; neurodevelopmental disorders; problematic internet use.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Autism Spectrum Disorder*
Autistic Disorder*
Behavior, Addictive* / diagnosis
Cell Movement
Humans
Internet
Internet Addiction Disorder

Grants and funding

This work was partially supported by Health Labor Sciences Research Grant (grant no. 20GC1022 to M.T.), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research: (1) The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI; JP22H00494 to T.A.K.) and (2) The Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED; JP21wm0425010 to T.A.K.).