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Background: Digital addictions are a major problem worldwide, which has increased considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this scenario, two important impact factors to explain this problem are stress and anxiety because of COVID-19. The objective of this research was to determine the impact of distress and anxiety due to COVID-19 on digital addictions., Methods: cross-sectional, explanatory study. A total of 802 students from public and private universities residing in the city of Lima and Callao (Peru), with a mean age of 21.68 (SD = 3.11), selected by convenience sampling, participated in the study. The MULTICAGE CAD-4 questionnaire, the distress scale, and the COVID-19 worry scale were applied., Results: two models examined with structural equation modeling showed good fit indices (CFI and TLI > .95, RMSEA and SRMR < .06). The first model shows that the latent variables distress and anxiety due to COVID-19 have direct effects on digital addictions as a general construct (R 2 = 22%). The second model shows that the exogenous latent variables (stress and anxiety) have direct effects of different magnitudes on each digital technology, so the variance explained on smartphone addiction was higher (R 2 = 25%) with respect to internet (R 2 = 19%) and video game addiction (R 2 = 6%). It was also found that for every male, there are two females with high levels of distress and anxiety. Regarding the problematic use of smartphones and internet, there is a prevalence of 40% regardless of sex; but as for the problematic use of video games, there is a marked difference between males (18.8%) and females (2.7%)., Conclusion: the distress and anxiety caused by COVID-19 have a direct impact in aggravating digital addictions., Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed., (Copyright: © 2024 Capa-Luque W et al.)

The impact of social networks on people's daily lives is worrisome, particularly in adolescents and young people, who seem to exceed the limits of normal use. Constant excessive use can lead to pathological behaviors linked to social media addiction (SMA). Our objectives were to 1) adapt the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) to Spanish and 2) evaluate its psychometric properties in a young population. The BSMAS was adapted to Spanish, involving experts on social media addiction and people from the target population during the adaptation process. For the psychometric evaluation, 650 Peruvian college students responded to the Spanish version (53.5 % women aged 18 to 40, M = 21.5 SD = 2.7). The one-dimensional measurement model proposed for the original BSMAS was confirmed for our version (X 2 (9)  = 23.9315, CFI = 0.994, TLI = 0.990, SRMR = 0.032, RMSEA = 0.061). The reliability was good (α = 0.863; 95 % CI: 0.848-0.870; ω = 0.864; 95 % CI: 0.846-0.844), and the measurement invariance was confirmed for sex and age by fitting models. The concurrent validity with external social media addiction and mental health indicators was also confirmed. This study provides new and relevant information on the BSMAS validity and allows its application to Spanish-speaker college students from Peru and similar countries., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Research on the effects of COVID-19 has shown that a favorable attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine would help reduce the pandemic's sequelae and avoid lethal variants., Objective: A theoretical model was tested through the strategy of path analysis and structural equation modeling, seeking to evaluate the direct effect of neuroticism and the indirect effects of risk-avoidance and rule-following behaviors, mediated by attitudes toward science., Methods: A total of 459 adults, mostly women (61%), mean age 28.51 ( SD = 10.36), living in Lima (Peru), participated. The scales of neuroticism, risk avoidance behavior (RAB), norm following (NF), attitudes toward science, and attitudes toward vaccination were administered., Results: The path analysis explained 36% of the variance in vaccine attitude, whereas the latent structural regression model achieved a 54% explanation; according to this model attitude toward science ( β =.70, p < .01) and neuroticism ( β =-.16, p < .01) are significant predictors of vaccine attitude. Likewise, risk avoidance behavior and rule-following have indirect effects on attitudes toward vaccination., Conclusion: Low neuroticism and a positive attitude toward the science that mediates the effects of RAB and NF directly condition the possibility of vaccination against COVID-19 in the adult population., Competing Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2023.)