title: Core and peripheral criteria of video game addiction in the game addiction scale for adolescents.
abstract: Assessment of video game addiction often involves measurement of peripheral criteria that indicate high engagement with games, and core criteria that indicate problematic use of games. A survey of the Norwegian population aged 16-74 years (N=10,081, response rate 43.6%) was carried out in 2013, which included the Gaming Addiction Scale for Adolescents (GAS). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that a two-factor structure, which separated peripheral criteria from core criteria, fitted the data better (CFI=0.963; RMSEA=0.058) compared to the original one-factor solution where all items are determined to load only on one factor (CFI=0.905, RMSEA=0.089). This was also found when we analyzed men aged ≤33 years, men aged >33 years, women aged ≤33 years, and women aged >33 years separately. This indicates that the GAS measures both engagement and problems related to video games. Multi-group measurement invariance testing showed that the factor structure was valid in all four groups (configural invariance) for the two-factor structure but not for the one-factor structure. A novel approach to categorization of problem gamers and addicted gamers where only the core criteria items are used (the CORE 4 approach) was compared to the approach where all items are included (the GAS 7 approach). The current results suggest that the CORE 4 approach might be more appropriate for classification of problem gamers and addicted gamers compared to the GAS 7 approach.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen , Bergen, Norway .
authors.forename: Geir Scott
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Brunborg
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hanss
authors.forename: Rune Aune
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Mentzoni
authors.forename: Ståle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pallesen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014175:Translating; D018910:Video Games / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
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