PVP Questionnaire: what is it and how is it used to detect video game addiction?

The PVP questionnaire is a tool to assess the degree of addiction to video games.

In recent years, the consumption of digital entertainment, especially video games, has become widely popular and has come to break down the barriers that has come to break down generational barriers.

Candy Crash, Fortnite, Pokémon Go, World of Warcraft are just one of the few video game titles that have in children, teenagers and adults a large group of fans, who dedicate several hours a day to them.

Enjoying this type of entertainment is fine and age should not be an obstacle to enjoy this leisure. But everything should be done in moderation, otherwise problems may arise. Today it is considered that a large percentage of the population, especially among adolescents, play video games in an addictive way, causing problems in the sphere of studies, work, family and social relationships.

This is not new. The possibility of the emergence of addictive behaviors in relation to new technologies was raised decades ago. This is why one of the first tools to measure the severity of this type of problem was developed in the early 2000s: the PVP questionnaire.

We are going to explain what this questionnaire consists of, what were the antecedents that led to its development, as well as mentioning some of the research that has used it and some of its remarkable psychometric properties.

What is the PVP questionnaire?

The PVP questionnaire, which stands for Problem Video Game Playing Questionnaire, is the first psychological instrument designed to the first psychological instrument designed for the assessment of problems resulting from video game abuse.. This questionnaire can include any type of video game of any type of console, whether portable (game boy), desktop (PlayStation) or arcade (arcade machines).

This tool was published in 2002 in the journal Addiction, and its authors were the psychology professors Ricardo A. Tejeiro Salguero, from the University of Liverpool, and Rosa M. Bersabé Morán, from the University of Málaga.

The PVP questionnaire was based on the review of several of the DSM-IV criteria for disorders associated with substance dependence and pathological gambling.. In the early 2000s there was still a rather limited view of what was understood as pathological gambling. Although the problems that could be caused by the abuse of video games were already suspected, pathological gambling was still seen as something exclusive to casinos and slot machines.

This is why the application of instruments such as the PVP questionnaire and others that were subsequently developed are suitable for finding out, quantitatively, how serious the problem with video games may be, but without the need to establish a specific diagnosis..

However, in view of the growing use of video games among young people, researchers and the APA and WHO itself considered the need to include the abuse of this type of entertainment among addictions. It must be said that, to date, there is still controversy as to whether the problems associated with new technologies, video games and the Internet should be considered addictions per se, and put in the same category as alcoholism and other substance abuse.

In fact, while the WHO has included a disorder related to this type of addiction (gaming disorder) in the ICD-11, the APA did not consider it appropriate to include something related to this type of addiction, the APA did not consider it appropriate to include something similar in the elaboration of the DSM-5, considering that there was not enough evidence to form a diagnostic label for this type of addiction. to form a diagnostic label for Internet gaming disorder.

Antecedents

Psychologists Ricardo A. Tejeiro Salguero and Rosa M. Bersabé Morán saw, in the early 2000s, that relatively little research had been done in the field of pathological behaviors associated with video game abuse.

Although at that time it was already being pointed out that abusing new technologies could lead to addictive situations, accompanied by antisocial behavior and the loss of large amounts of money, research at the time had been limited, for the most part, to looking at the number of hours people devoted to this type of entertainment..

At the time, it was not at all clear what proportion of adolescents could be considered 'addicted' to this type of entertainment. Studies such as that of Brooks in 1983 suggested that they must be a minority, while others, such as Egli and Meyers in 1984, said that, in the population, percentages of between 10 and 15% of players addicted to video games could be expected.

Given the lack of diagnostic criteria for this type of behavior and the lack of adequate tools to measure it, Tejeiro Salguero and Bersabé Morán proceeded to elaborate the PVP questionnaire based on the criteria of the fourth edition of the DSM and several studies from the eighties and nineties that had laid the foundations for measuring this type of problem in a tentative way.

Research

Given the importance that the PVP questionnaire acquired after its publication in the journal Addiction in 2003, this tool has been used in multiple subsequent investigations. The questionnaire is considered a reference when it comes to measuring video game abuse, as is the PVP Inventory.The questionnaire is considered a benchmark for measuring video game abuse, as is the Beck Inventory for depression or the WAIS test for intelligence. It should be noted that it has been used both in its original version and with minor modifications, either for reasons of language or cultural differences.

To date, there are more than thirty published studies in which this questionnaire has been used, taking samples from various countries: Spain, France, Iceland, United States, Canada, Chile, Australia, Thailand, Brazil, Peru and the United Kingdom, among many others.

Psychometric properties

A recent systematic review of questionnaires related to addictions to new technologies, specifically the one conducted by the group of Daniel L. King and company in 2013, concluded that the PVP questionnaire is the best instrument to address addictions associated with video game abuse and also Internet addiction.

In 2002, when Tejeiro Salguero and Bersabé Morán carried out the validation study, they administered this questionnaire to 223 adolescents in the cities of Granada and La Línea de la Concepción. When the factor analysis was performed, it was concluded that it was a unidimensional test.

The internal consistency was acceptable despite having a limited number of items, obtaining a Crombach's alpha coefficient of 0.67.The Crombach's alpha coefficient of 0.67 was obtained. Given this, any adaptations that may be made to this questionnaire should be made with great care, especially if its number is reduced, since it would lose internal consistency.

Bibliographical references:

• Brooks, B. D. (1983) [Untitled]. In: Baugham, S. S. & Clagett, P. D., eds. Video Games and Human Development: a Research Agenda for the 80s. Cambridge, MA: Gutman Library.
• Egli, E. A. & Meyers, L. S. (1984) The role of videogame playing in adolescent life: is there reason to be concerned? Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 22, 309-312.
• Elliott, L. Golub, A. Ream, G. & Dunlap, E. (2011) Video Game Genre as a Predictor of Problem Use. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and Social Networking, 15(3), 155-161.
• Hart G. M., Johnson B., Stamm B., Angers N., Robinson A., Lally T., Fagley W.H. (2009)Effects of video games on adolescents and adults. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 12(1):63-65.
• King,, D.L., Haagsma, M.C., Delfabbro, P.H., Gradisar, M. & Griffiths, M.D. (2013). Toward a consensus definition of pathological video-gaming: A systematic review of psychometric assessment tools. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(3), 331-342..
• Lewis M. L., Weber R., Bowman N.D. (2008) They may be pixels, but they're MY pixels:" developing a metric of character attachment in role-playing video games. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 11(4) 515-518
• Ream, G. L., Elliott, L. C. y Dunlap, E. (2011) Playing Video Games While Using or Feeling the Effects of Substances: Associations with Substance Use Problems. 8(10), 3979-3998.
• Tejeiro-Salguero & Bersabé-Moran (2002). Measuring problem video game playing in adolescents. Addiction, 97, 1601-1606.
• Tolchinsky, A.y Jefferson, S. D. (2011) Problematic Video Game Play in a College Sample and Its Relationship to Time Management Skills and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptomology Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14(9).