ABSTRACT
Background
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends limiting screen time (ST) to 60 min/day for preschool children. However, screen use among preschool children often exceeds this limit. Parents play a key role in managing their children’s ST behaviors. Valid tools to assess parental attitudes toward children’s ST are needed to guide research and interventions.
Objective
This study aimed to conduct a psychometric evaluation of the Turkish version of the Parental Attitude Scale for Children’s Screen Time (PAS-CST) among parents of preschool children.
Method
The PAS-CST is an 8-item scale that operationalizes parental attitudes toward children’s ST as permissive versus restrictive responses to justifications for screen use. The methodological study included 328 parents (86.3% mothers) of children aged 36–76 months (M = 57.8 months, SD = 9.8; 54.3% girls) in Istanbul during September–October 2023, with 83 parents completing the test–retest assessment.
Results
The scale showed excellent content validity (content validity index = 1.0). After theoretically justified model modifications, confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that the root mean square error of approximation was within an acceptable range and the other fit indices met the criteria for perfect fit. The scale had Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87, McDonald’s omega of 0.87, item–total correlations of 0.54–0.71, and test–retest correlation of 0.84. Parents of children who met the WHO ST guideline (≤ 60 min/day) had significantly higher PAS-CST scores than those who exceeded the recommendation.
Conclusion
The Turkish PAS-CST demonstrates good psychometric properties for assessing parental attitudes toward preschoolers’ ST.