The Problematic Behaviour Scale (PBS-5): A brief measure for the population-level screening of non-substance-bound addictive behaviours

Background and aims: The Assessment of Criteria for Specific Internet-use Disorders (ACSID-11; Müller et al. 2022, Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 11, 427-450) offers a valuable instrument to screen addictive disorders in population-wide surveys based on ICD-11 criteria. We evaluated this scale in the Swiss context and identified items for a shorter scale we term Problematic Behaviour Scale (PBS-5). Methods: We included ACSID-11 in the Swiss survey “Health and Lifestyle” 2023 (n=5’995, age: 15+) in German, French and Italian, and generalized the scale for offline and online behaviours (social media use, shopping, gaming, gambling, and pornography use). We assessed psychometric characteristics (factor analysis, internal consistency, external validity) of PBS-5. Classification quality and cut-off values of PBS-5 for prevalences of problematic behaviour were determined by multiple Receiver Operator Characteristic regressions of the Patient Health Questionaire-4 on PBS-5. Results: PBS-5 showed a one-dimensional factorial structure, and excellent internal consistency. External validity and classification quality was limited. Based on the cut-offs derived from ROC analysis, prevalence rates of problematic behaviours as a percentage of regular users in Switzerland were: social media use: 20.0 %, shopping: 9.0 %, gaming: 16.7 %, gambling: 5.5 %, pornography use: 12.6 %. Problematic social media use peaked among young women and gaming among young men. Problematic gaming, and pornography use were more frequent among men. Problematic shopping was observed more frequently among subjects with low education. Discussion and conclusions: PBS-5 serves as a valuable brief screening tool for addictive behaviours. The longer PBS-10 did not outperform PBS-5.