Background: The popularity of using the Internet and related applications has grown in Arabic countries in recent years. Despite numerous advantages in terms of optimizing communications among individuals and social systems, the use of the Internet may in certain cases become problematic and engender negative consequences in daily life. As no instrument in the Arabic language is available, however, to measure excessive Internet use, the goal of the current study was to validate an Arabic version of the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS).

Methods: The Arabic version of the CIUS was administered to a sample of 185 Internet users and exploratory and confirmatory analyses performed.

Results: As found previously for the original version, a one-factor model of the CIUS had good psychometric properties and fit the data well. The total score on the CIUS was positively associated with time spent online.

Conclusion: The Arabic version of the CIUS seems to be a valid self-report to measure problematic Internet use.