Internal consistency and structural validity of the nomophobia questionnaire (NMP-Q) and its translations: A systematic review with meta-analysis

Background: A psychological condition known as NOMOPHOBIA causes individuals to fear losing ability to use or reach their mobile phones. The NMP-Q (nomophobia questionnaire) is a commonly used survey for assessing symptoms related to nomophobia. Materials and methods: We performed a meta-analysis using reliability generalization (RG) on the NMP-Q. Thirteen studies involving 15,929 participants have reported original reliability estimates of the NMP-Q determined through a comprehensive and methodical examination of the available literature. Results: For the total scores, the pooled internal consistency reliability was 0.93 [0.91; 0.95] and for the subscales it ranged from 0.83 to 0.91. Specifically, 0.91 [0.88; 0.93], 0.84 [0.80; 0.88], 0.83 [0.78; 0.88, and 0.83 [0.80; 0.85] for the subscales. Subscale 1 = not being able to communicate; subscale 2 = losing connectedness; subscale 3 = not being able to access information; and subscale 4 = giving up convenience, respectively. All reported effect sizes are Cronbach's alphas. Structural validity supported a solution of four-factors. Conclusions: NMP-Q has an excellent internal consistency. Structural validity of four factors appears to be vigorous in fitting NMP-Q items. Our recommendation is to require future studies using NMP-Q to provide a reliability estimate based on their own data.

Automated summary

NOMOPHOBIA is a psychological condition in which individuals fear losing the ability to use or reach their mobile phones. The NMP-Q is a commonly used survey for assessing symptoms related to nomophobia. A meta-analysis on the NMP-Q reveals excellent internal consistency and structural validity of four factors.