Validation of the Internet Gaming Disorder Questionnaire in a Sample of Adult German-Speaking Internet Gamers

With the inclusion of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders comes the need for a reliable and valid questionnaire to assess the diagnosis. The Internet Gaming Disorder Questionnaire (IGDQ) is a short tool that measures IGD. Our study aimed at investigating its psychometric properties in a sample of German gamers. Eight hundred ninety-four Internet game players (mean age: 26.5 +/- 8.5 years, range: 18-75 years, 87.36% male) completed an online version of the IGDQ and the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS) and provided information on their Internet and gaming use. Item and reliability analyses were computed. To investigate the component structure, the sample was randomly divided into two subsamples. A maximum likelihood factor analysis was conducted for one subsample and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the other subsample. The IGDQ had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.70. The IGDQ score correlated with the CIUS score (r = 0.59) and the time spent playing (r = 0.24). The maximum likelihood factor analysis extracted one component, explaining 30.26% of the variance, which was confirmed by the CFA. The correlation of the IGDQ score with the CIUS score is a first indicator that the IGDQ allows for valid interpretations. In all, 7.94% of the gamers met the criteria for IGD.