Abstract
Introduction
The Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form (IGDS9-SF) assesses the severity, harmful effects and/or consequences of excessive online and offline gaming. Its conciseness and theoretical foundations on current diagnostic criteria of gaming disorders make it a useful resource for clinical and screening settings.
Objective
To describe the process of cross-cultural adaptation of the IGDS9-SF to the Brazilian context.
Methods
The cross-cultural adaptation involved the steps of independent translation of the instrument, synthesis version, back-translation, pre-test and elaboration of the final version. Content validity assessment was conducted by a multidisciplinary committee of experts and consisted of both a quantitative analysis (calculation of content validity coefficients – CVC) and a qualitative analysis (assessment of the experts’ comments and suggestions). The pre-test sample consisted of 30 gamers with variable sociodemographic characteristics.
Results
The cross-cultural adaptation of the scale followed the proposed protocol, and the CVC was satisfactory (≥ 0.83) for all the structures and equivalences assessed. Most of the suggestions made by the experts were accepted (mainly adjustments and language standardization). The gamers who participated in the pre-test judged the scale easy to understand and did not suggest changes.
Discussion
The Brazilian version of the IGDS9-SF showed adequate content validity and is available for researchers and clinicians, as well as for the investigation of additional psychometric characteristics.
Gaming disorder; internet; scales; cross-cultural adaptation; psychometrics; IGDS9-SF