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Development of the Adolescent Preoccupation with Screens Scale

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, August 2017
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  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (52nd percentile)

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Title
Development of the Adolescent Preoccupation with Screens Scale
Published in
BMC Public Health, August 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12889-017-4657-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Simon C. Hunter, Stephen Houghton, Corinne Zadow, Michael Rosenberg, Lisa Wood, Trevor Shilton, David Lawrence

Abstract

Although public health concerns have been raised regarding the detrimental health effects of increasing rates of electronic screen use among adolescents, such effects have been small. Instruments currently available tend to be lengthy, have a clinical research focus, and assess young people's screen use on specific screen-based activities (e.g., TV, computer, or internet). None appear to address screen use across a broad range of screens, including mobile devices and screen-based activities. The objective was to develop a new and short self-report scale for investigating adolescents' screen use across all screens and screen-based activities in non-clinical settings. The Adolescent Preoccupation with Screens Scale (APSS) was developed over a three stage process. First, a review of the current literature and existing instruments was undertaken and suitable items identified. Second, the draft APSS was piloted with adolescents and item affectivity and discrimination indices were calculated. Third, a cross sectional school based online survey of 1967 Australian adolescents in grades 5 (10 years old), 7 (13 years) and 9 (15 years) from 25 randomly selected schools was conducted. Factor Analysis on a sub-sample of the data (n = 782) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis on the remaining sub-sample (n = 1185), supported a two-factor model. The first factor reflects adolescents' mood management with screen use, and the second reflects a behavioural preoccupation. The measure demonstrated strong invariance across sex and across Grades 5, 7, and 9. Both factors displayed good internal consistency (α = .91 and .87, respectively). Sex and grade differences on both scales were investigated and boys in Grade 5 reported higher levels of both mood management and behavioural preoccupation with screens. There were no sex differences on mood management in Grades 7 and 9, but girls reported higher behavioural preoccupation in both these later grades. The APSS provides researchers with a new, brief and robust measure of potentially problematic screen use across a wide array of screens, including mobile devices, so readily accessed during adolescence.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 8 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 103 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 103 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 18 17%
Researcher 12 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 10%
Student > Master 9 9%
Professor 5 5%
Other 20 19%
Unknown 29 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 22 21%
Medicine and Dentistry 13 13%
Nursing and Health Professions 7 7%
Social Sciences 3 3%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 2 2%
Other 16 16%
Unknown 40 39%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 August 2017.
All research outputs
#6,316,711
of 23,332,901 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#6,546
of 15,208 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#99,461
of 319,286 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#85
of 182 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,332,901 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,208 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 56% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 319,286 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 182 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.