JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Excessive use of smartphone is recognized as a major problem in our modern society and can have dramatic consequences on the health of adolescents and young adults. Measuring problematic smartphone use in research and clinical practice is generally operationalized with self-reported questionnaires. In order to comprehensively assess the issue of problematic smartphone usage within the French population, it is imperative to employ validated French-language questionnaires. At this point, however, existing questionnaires are primarily available in English. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, they have yet to undergo validation processes for French-speaking cohorts.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to translate and to perform a cross cultural translation of the Smartphone Addiction Scale, the Nomophobia Questionnaire, The Problematic Use of Mobile Phones scale and the Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale in French.

Methods:

The translation process is carried out using the "forward/backward" method. The first translation phase involved asking French four independent translators to translate the original version into French language. In a second phase, the French version was back-translated into English by a native English speaker. In the third phase, two concept experts are asked to comment and suggest modifications to the statements if necessary. Finally, the last version of the translated questionnaires was presented 18 participants to assess the clarity, intelligibility and acceptability of the translations.

Results:

During the forward translation step, translation differences were minor. During the backward translation, the English native speaker correctly back translated 18 items from the Smartphone Addiction Scale, 17 items from the Problematic Use of Mobile Phones scale and 13 out of 15 items from the Smartphone Addiction Proneness Scale. Back-translation for the Nomophobia Questionnaire was less good, with 10 items out of 20 that were correctly back translated. The linguistic verification step revealed a minimal modification for the four questionnaires. In the same way, the participants suggested few improvements. We produced a final version directly after this step.

Conclusions:

This study succeeded in adapting and effectively translating the four questionnaires that assess the problematic smartphone use in a French-speaking language. These adapted questionnaires can serve as valuable research tools for investigating and addressing issues related to problematic smartphone use in French-speaking countries, and for making international comparisons.