French Versions of 2 English Questionnaires on Problematic Digital Use Assessed by Adolescents and Their Parents: Cross-Cultural Linguistic Translation and Adaptation Study

Background: The emergence of problematic digital use is increasingly alarming, affecting between 7% and 20% of the world's adolescent population. However, there is no validated questionnaire in French to measure this. Only a few questionnaires, either self-reported by adolescents or hetero-reported by parents, have been translated and validated in English. Objective: This study aims to translate into French the Digital Addiction Scale for Children (DASC), which is self-reported by adolescents, and the Problematic Media Use Measure (PMUM), which is hetero-reported by parents of adolescents. Methods: We used the "forward and backward" method to establish the translation and achieve cross-cultural adaptation with 8 parents and 8 adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years. There were three stages: (1) initial translation and synthesis or reconciliation of the translations phase; (2) back translation and expert committee phase; and (3) pretesting phase, during which 8 parents completed the PMUM questionnaire and 8 adolescents completed the DASC questionnaire. Results: Despite slight variations in translation for both questionnaires, the translators quickly reached a consensus during the translation phase. The expert committee did not propose any other conceptual changes. In the final phase, the parents made no comments to improve the questions or the wording. Although some adolescents mentioned repetition between certain questions, they did not suggest any improvements to the DASC questionnaire in French. Conclusions: Although the translated versions of the DASC and PMUM questionnaires provide a foundation for detecting problematic digital use, they require further validation studies to confirm their reliability and applicability in the French adolescent population.