Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire: An Exploratory Study Using a Sample of Convicted Sex Offenders

ABSTRACT

This study explored the psychometric properties of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire (OSA-Q). In total, 100 sexual offenders completed the OSA-Q Spanish version, along with the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) for the assessment of related impairment. Thirty-four individuals with social-desirability bias were extracted from the sample. A four-factor structure accounted for 77% of the variance and internal consistency was strong (α = .97). Additionally, correlations with related clinical scales were statistically significant. Overall, online sexual offenders showed higher scores on the OSA-Q than contact-exclusive offenders. According to our results, the OSA-Q shows promise as a screening in forensic samples.

KEYWORDS:

• Online sexual addiction
• pornography
• cybersex
• sexual offenders
• personality
• child sexual exploitation material

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the support of Xavier-Andoni Tibau Alberdi, for his valuable methodological and statistical advice. We further thank the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions (Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs) for authorizing this research.

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spain) under Grant DER2017-86336-R. This research was also partially supported by the University Research Institute of Criminology and Criminal Science of the University of Valencia.