Development of the 12-Item Social Media Disinformation Scale and its Association With Social Media Addiction and Mental Health Related to COVID-19 in Tunisia: Survey-Based Pilot Case Study

Abstract

Background: In recent years, online disinformation has increased. Fake news has been spreading about the COVID-19 pandemic. Since January 2020, the culprits and antidotes to disinformation have been digital media and social media.

Objective: Our study aimed to develop and test the psychometric properties of the 12-item Social Media Disinformation Scale (SMDS-12), which assesses the consumption, confidence, and sharing of information related to COVID-19 by social media users.

Methods: A total of 874 subjects were recruited over two phases: the exploratory phase group had a mean age of 28.39 years (SD 9.32) and the confirmatory phase group had a mean age of 32.84 years (SD 12.72). Participants completed the SMDS-12, the Internet Addiction Test, the COVID-19 Fear Scale, and the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. The SMDS-12 was initially tested by exploratory factor analysis and was subsequently tested by confirmatory factor analysis.

Results: The test supported the three-factor structure. In addition, no items were removed from the measurement scale, with three factors explaining up to 73.72% of the total variance, and the items had a lambda factor loading ranging from 0.73 to 0.85. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the robustness of the measure by referring to a wide range of goodness-of-fit indices that met the recommended standards. The construct validity of the scale was supported by its convergent and discriminant validity. The reliability of the instrument examined by means of three internal consistency indices, and the corrected item-total correlation, demonstrated that the three dimensions of the instrument were reliable: Cronbach α values were .89, .88, and .88 for the consumption, confidence, and sharing subscales, respectively. The corrected item-total correlation ranged from 0.70 to 0.78. The correlation of the instrument's dimensions with internet addiction and mental health factors showed positive associations.

Conclusions: The SMDS-12 can be reliably utilized to measure the credibility of social media disinformation and can be adapted to measure the credibility of disinformation in other contexts.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; media disinformation; mental health; scale validation; social media addiction.

Figure 1

The final confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the 12-item Social Media Disinformation Scale. Factor correlation coefficients are 0.24 (between consumption and sharing), 0.28 (between consumption and confidence), and 0.36 (between confidence and sharing). Factor loadings range from 0.78 to 0.85. e1 to e12 represent the error variance for each item (I). CFA statistics: χ²₅₁=62.5, P<.001; χ²/df=1.2; goodness-of-fit index=0.977; adjusted goodness-of-fit index=0.965; Tucker-Lewis index=0.995; comparative fit index=0.996; root mean square error of approximation=0.023 (90% CI 0-0.04); standardized root mean residual=0.036.