Translation and validation of the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q) in Italian language: Insights from factor analysis

Introduction Nomophobia is the fear of feeling disconnected and is considered a modern situational phobia. Objectives No psychometric scales in Italian are available investigating nomophobia. Therefore, we planned a translation and validation study of the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q) by Yildirim and Correia. Aims Subjects were recruited via an online survey using a snow-ball approach. Methods NMP-Q was translated from English into Italian. To explore the factor structure, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out. A principal component analysis (PCA) approach with varimax rotation was performed. Results Four hundred and three subjects volunteered to take part into the study. Age was 27.91\u2005\ub1\u20058.63 y, 160 were males (39.7%) and 243 females (60.3%). 45 subjects used to spend less than 1\u2005hour on their mobile (11.2%), 94 between 1 and 2\u2005hours (23.3%), 69 between 2 and 3\u2005hours (17.1%), 58 between 3 and 4\u2005hours (14.4%), 48 between 4 and 5\u2005hours (11.9%), 29 between 5 and 7\u2005hours (7.2%), 36 between 7 and 9\u2005hours (8.9%) and 24 more than 10\u2005hours (6.0%). Eigen values and the scree-plot supported a 3-factorial nature of the translated questionnaire. NMP-Q showed a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.95 (0.94, 0.89 and 0.88 for the three factors). The first factor explained 23.32% of the variance, the second and the third 23.91% and 18.67%, respectively. Further, the total score of NMP-Q correlated with the number of hours spent on the mobile, the age (beta-coefficient 120.33, P\u2005=\u20050.016) and sex (being higher among females). Conclusions The Italian version of NMP-Q proved to be reliable