[Internet and cell phone addiction: passing fad or disorder?]. / La adiccion a Internet y al movil: ¿moda o trastorno?

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) generate new styles of meeting people or connecting with friends or strangers. In this context, the internet and the mobile phone deserve special attention. This article deals with the maladaptive use of these technologies. By reviewing the literature published between 1991 and 2005 and indexed in the databases of PsycINFO, Medline, Psicodoc, IME, and ISOC, we aim to determine whether maladaptive use of these technologies can be considered a mental disorder, and if so, of which type. We describe the psychological phenomena of maladaptive use of the internet and mobile phones, we review research on prevalence and possible risk groups, and finally we discuss some of the criticisms made with regard to the existence and classification of this disorder. It is concluded that excessive use of the internet can lead to a mental disorder of the addictive type, which can particularly affect individuals with special emotional needs, as well as adolescents and young adults. Among specific applications of the internet, a major risk is found for the use of communicative and synchronic applications, such as chats and online role games, since they permit hyperpersonal communication, playing with different identities, and projections and dissociation without consequences in real life. Furthermore, the internet can play an important role in the development and maintenance of other addictions, such as pathological gambling and sex addiction. In contrast to the case of the internet, maladaptive use of mobile phones may be considered abuse, but not addiction, since their use does not lead to the rapid emotional changes or the playing with identities that can take place in chats and online role games.

[Cross-cultural adaptation of the Eating Disorder Examination into Spanish]. / Adaptación transcultural al castellano de la Eating Disorder Examination.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: This study presents a cross-cultural adaptation into Spanish of the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) by Fairburn and Cooper (1993). MATERIAL AND METHOD: The original English version was adapted by means of a complex successive translation-backtranslation procedure. The final Spanish version was then applied to 50 patients with eating disorders (17 diagnosed for anorexia nervosa, 19 for bulimia nervosa, and 14 for binge eating disorder) and to 30 normal control subjects. RESULTS: The means and standard deviations of the group in the 4 subscales were similar to the data obtained by the normative studies of the original English version. The Spanish version also showed similarly high Cronbach alpha coefficients for reliability. As for discriminative validity, the subscales discriminated significantly between the clinical groups and the control group. CONCLUSIONS: The Spanish version of the EDE presents adequate psychometric properties, similar to the original version.