Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI-I) Italian Version for adolescents: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and self-control role

Adolescents seem to be at risk of smartphone addiction because they are yet to develop self-control in smartphone use. Indeed, the most considerable issue regarding smartphone addiction is its uncontrollability of usage. Thus, low self-control could be a risk factor for the development of emotions and behaviour difficulties in the adolescence period. The principal aim of the current study was to confirm the factor structure of Smartphone Addiction Inventory-Italian (SPAI-I; Pavia, Cavani, Di Blasi, & Giordano, 2016) version for adolescents, and to evaluate the factor structure of Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI; Lin, Lin, & Lee, 2014), original version among Taiwan’s sample. Furthermore, the relation between self-control, smartphone addiction symptoms, internalized and externalized symptoms across gender and age were investigated; especially, considering the role of self-control as a mediator between those symptoms. A total of 446 Italian early adolescents and adolescents completed Self-restraint subscale of Adolescent Self-Consciousness Questionnaire (ASC; Nie & Ding, 2009; Nie, Li, Dou, & Situ, 2014), Total Difficulties Score of the self-report version of Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997), and Italian version of Smartphone Addiction Inventory. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) confirmed the factor structure of SPAI-I and did not indicate a good fit with the exploratory factor structure of the original version. Furthermore, self-control was significant and negatively correlated with each dimension of SPAI-I. Regression models showed that self-control had a mediated effect on internalized and externalized symptoms. The present findings suggested that SPAI-I can be used to assess smartphone addiction among adolescents, highlighting self-control skills importance in diminishing smartphone addiction.