Development and evaluation of the digital-screen exposure questionnaire (DSEQ) for young children

Background Over the last three decades, the accessibility and usage of mobile devices have increased among young children. This study’s objective was to develop a validated caregiver-reported digital-screen exposure questionnaire (DSEQ) for children aged 2–5 years. Methods DSEQ was developed in five phases. Phase 1, a draft questionnaire was developed by reviewing the literature on existing tools (n = 2) from 2009–2017. Phase 2, face-to-face interviews with primary caregivers (n = 30) were conducted in a tertiary-care-hospital for acculturation. Nine experts assessed the face and content validity of the draft Hindi and English questionnaire. Phase 3, a pilot study conducted among randomly selected families (n = 40) to evaluate the feasibility of DSEQ in field settings. Phase 4, test-retest reliability was done among 30 primary caregivers selected randomly in another urban cluster. Phase 5, the internal consistency of DSEQ was checked by conducting a cross-sectional study among randomly selected 400 primary caregivers in Chandigarh, North India. IBM SPSS Statistics for Macintosh, version 25.0, was for data management and analysis. Results A valid DSEQ with 86 items under five domains, including sociodemographic, screen-time exposure and home media environment, level of physical activity, media-related behaviors, and parental perceptions was developed. The pilot study showed that it was feasible to use the DSEQ in the field. DSEQ was reliable with kappa value ranging from 0.52 to 1.0, and intra-class coefficient of 0.62–0.99 (p<0.05). A strong internal consistency was observed for three domains including, screen-time exposure and home media environment (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.82), media-related behaviors (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.74) and physical activity (Cronbach’s alpha 0.73). Conclusions The developed DSEQ has good face and content validity and acceptable evidence of internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The DSEQ can be used for measuring digital screen exposure and its correlates among children aged 2 to 5 years.