Content validity and test-retest reliability of a questionnaire to measure virtual social network addiction among students

Abstract

Background: Addiction to virtual social networks (VSNs), especially among students, has become a crisis during the recent years. Objectives: This study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of a questionnaire on VSN addiction among Iranian university students. Patients and Methods: The initial questionnaire was designed based on extensive literature review and consulting with experts. To measure the item and content validity indexes (I-CVI and S-CVI) and to measure the content validity ratio (CVR), a panel of 24 experts reviewed the questionnaire. To measure the test-retest reliability, the questionnaire was administered on 30 students within the interval of 14-21 days and the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated. Cronbach's alpha and the corrected item-total correlation were calculated to measure internal consistency. All analysis was done using SPSS 20 software. Results: All items had satisfactory CVR and I-CVI. The S-CVI was 0.98. The value of Cronbach's alpha was 0.88. The corrected item-total correlation for all items, except one, was in acceptable range. This item was removed from the final questionnaire. The test-retest reliability of the questionnaire was almost perfect (ICC = 0.9). Conclusions: The current study provides a valid and reliable questionnaire to measure VSN addiction among university students. The designed instrument could be used in addiction evaluation studies.