Measuring Internet Gaming Disorder in Chinese International Students in the United Kingdom

Aims: The number of international students at higher education institutions has increased dramatically over the past decades, in parallel to the efforts to identify, measure and manage the special challenges they meet and their potentially negative responses. Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been identified as a potential problem in this context, but its measurement in some specific populations is a challenging task because few adequate instruments exist. This paper presents the adaptation and validation on a sample of Chinese young adults of one of the most commonly used questionnaires in this area, the Problem Video Game Playing scale (PVP).

Study Design: Correlational study.

Place and Duration of Study: The University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, between October and December 2014.

Methodology: The scale was completed—together with the Severity of Dependence Scale and other questions about the use of video games and its consequences—by 240 international Chinese students who followed diverse programmes at the University of Liverpool during the course 2014-15.

Results: We found high internal consistency at Cronbach’s α = .84. The one-factorial solution in the original scale was replicated, with the first factor explaining 44.5% of the variance. Spearman’s correlations were significant for the association between the scale score and all alternative indicators of problem video gaming. 63 participants (26.2%) were found to be problem players as defined by 5 or more symptoms; males (34.8%) were more likely than females (10.6%) to present IGD; p < .001, Φ = .26.

Conclusion: The Chinese version of the PVP scale presents adequate psychometric and diagnostic properties for the assessment of internet gaming disorder, at least in young Chinese adults.