Disambiguating the Items in the Nomophobia Questionnaire through a Psychometric Evaluation using Rasch Measurement Model

Behavioral addiction related to smart phone usage has led to the development of measures like Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMPQ). Nomophobia had been theorised as a form of behavioural addiction with four dimensions: losing connectedness, giving up convenience, not able to communicate, and not having access to information. The concern about its factor structure, the limitations of its psychometric evaluation, and the need to use the NMPQ in Malaysia motivated the present work. This study aimed to translate and examine the NMPQ using Rasch Models among Malaysians adults. The study involved back-translation, expert validation, and Rasch analysis.  The translation into Bahasa Melayu and rating from experts revealed the need to revise some items to fit the conceptualisation of nomophobia as an addiction rather than fear. An online survey was conducted with responses from 677 Malaysian adults. Using the Rasch Rating Scale Model, it was found that the NMPQ-BM Revised has satisfactory psychometric properties after the removal of two items. In addition, this study also removed ambiguities from some items to better reflect behavioural addiction. At the conceptual level, this study highlighted Communication as a potential stand-alone dimension. The NMPQ-BM Revised has been validated as an objective measure and can be used to further examine nomophobia as a behavioural addiction. This study has contributed to the semantic clarity for the measurement of nomophobia. The revised instrument has items that are conceptually closer to nomophobia than fear of missing out or addiction to technology and the internet.