Psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire: An exploratory study using a sample of convicted sex offenders

Research has suggested that, in some cases, sexual offending might be a manifestation of an uncontrolled or compulsive online sexual activity, which may be conceptualized as a behavioral addiction. To deal with the lack of validated instruments to assess online sexual addiction, this study tested the psychometric properties of the Online Sexual Addiction Questionnaire (OSA-Q). To this end, a total of 100 men convicted of a sexual offense completed the Spanish version of the OSA-Q, along with the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) for the assessment of related areas of impairment. Once individuals with social desirability response bias (n = 34) were extracted from the sample, the exploratory factor analysis yielded a four-factor structure explaining 77.06% of the variance for the OSA-Q. Additionally, internal consistency of the total score was strong (α = .97), and correlations with related clinical scales were significant. Overall, individuals convicted of online sexual offenses showed significantly higher scores on the OSA-Q than contact-exclusive offenders. These results justify the use of the OSA-Q (if accompanied by a valid assessment of social desirability response bias) in the screening of online sexual addiction in Spanish forensic samples, which might, in turn, improve existing risk management plans.