Romanian Version of the Internet Addiction Test: Psychometric Properties and Cross-Gender Invariance

Nowadays, excessive use of the Internet and addiction to it became constant concerns among researchers. The proliferation of this research stream came along with a constant need for valid operationalizations. Our study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) on a Romanian sample (n=421 students). Exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor solution: Mental Disorder (=.78); Time Management Disorder (=.79). Also, the overall IAT had good reliability (=.86). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial structure and through multigroup comparisons revealed that the instrument is invariant across genders. Further proofs in support of the IAT's validity were given by the significant associations with social anxiety, social support, and dissociation. Moreover, each scale and also the overall IAT score correlated positively with participants' self-reported time spent online (both during a week's working days and during weekends), and the time spent on the Facebook messenger smartphone application. The study showed that the Romanian version of the IAT has promising psychometric properties and can be successfully used in research regarding excessive Internet use.