Validation of the Russian version of the Social Media Disorder Scale (SMDS) questionnaire in adolescents

Introduction. An urgent medical and social problem at present is the need to develop nationally adapted versions of the questionnaire for assessing dependence on social networks, which is due to the avalanche-like increase in the prevalence of this phenomenon, especially among adolescents and youth, and often associated with disorders of the neuropsychic and somatic spectrum.

Aim. Validation of the English-language Social Media Disorder scale (SMDS) questionnaire based on 9 criteria, including psychopathological aspects of engagement with social networking sites.

Materials and methods. After the procedures of direct and reverse translation of the questionnaire, the psychometric validation of the test was carried out on a Russian-speaking sample of 3074 adolescents aged 11–19 years (46.1% of boys and 53.9% of girls, median age 14 (13–16) years) – students of 10 educational institutions in Krasnoyarsk. The external validity of the SMDS- RU questionnaire was assessed using the following methods: Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS) – to assess the presence of Internet addicted behavior; the Strengths and Challenges Questionnaire (SDQ) – to analyze the mental health of the subjects.

Results. Expiratory and confirmatory factor analyzes demonstrated good agreement between the test components. The results of confirmatory factor analysis confirmed its single-factor structure (CFI = 0.9, TLI = 0.9, RMSEA = 0.06), an acceptable Cronbach’s Alpha value (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.7) indicates its sufficient internal consistency and reliability. The external validity of the SMDS-RU questionnaire was confirmed by established associations with the results of the Chen Internet Addiction Test (CIAS) and the Strengths and Challenges Questionnaire (SDQ) by R. Goodman. Test-retest reliability when measured at 6-month intervals also demonstrated acceptable results: the Spearman correlation coefficient between the sums of scores of two measurements was 0.66, p < 0.001.

Conclusion. The Russian-language version of the Social Network Addiction Questionnaire (SMDS-RU) developed for teenagers has sufficient information content, reliability, internal and external validity and can be actively used in the Russian adolescent population.

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