Subpopulations of Addictive Behaviors in Different Sample Types and Their Relationships with Gender, Personality, and Well-Being: Latent Profile vs. Latent Class Analysis.

Edyta Charzyńska,Bartosz Atroszko,Paweł A. Atroszko

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168590

Abstract

Background: Relatively strong theoretical assumptions and previous studies concerning co-occurring addictive behaviors suggest a subpopulation representing general proclivity to behavioral addictions (BAs), and there are gender-specific subpopulations. This study aimed to compare latent profile analysis (LPA) and latent class analysis (LCA) as the methods of investigating different clusters of BAs in the general student population and among students positively screened for at least one BA. Participants and procedure: Analyses of six BAs (study, shopping, gaming, Facebook, pornography, and food) and their potential antecedents (personality) and consequences (well-being) were conducted on a full sample of Polish undergraduate students (N = 1182) and a subsample (n = 327) of students including individuals fulfilling cutoff for at least one BA. Results: LPA on the subsample mostly replicated the previous four profiles found in the full sample. However, LCA on a full sample did not replicate previous findings using LPA and showed only two classes: those with relatively high probabilities on all BAs and low probabilities. LCA on the subsample conflated profiles identified with LPA and classes found with LCA in the full sample. Conclusions: LCA on dichotomized scores (screened positively vs. negatively) were less effective in identifying clear patterns of interrelationships between BAs based on relatively strong theoretical assumptions and found in previous research. BAs can be investigated on the whole spectrum of behavior, and person-centered analyses might be more useful when they are based on continuous scores. This paper provides more detailed analyses of the four basic clusters of BAs, prevalence, and co-occurrence of particular BAs within and between them, their gender and personality risk factors, relationships to well-being, and their interrelationships as emerging from the results of this and previous studies.

Highlights

A recent study using latent profile analysis (LPA) showed four profiles of behavioral addictions (BAs) severity, including a profile with a general proclivity to addiction, two gender-specific profiles, one almost exclusively female and a second predominantly male, and a profile with low levels of BAs [1]
There, we provide the best available data on the prevalence of BAs in the general population based on representative samples against the backdrop of varying estimates coming from convenience samples
The profiles identified in the subsample showed significantly fewer differences, especially in terms of the relationship with well-being, which is expected because they all reflect a more clinical subset of individuals with high risk for at least one BA

Summary

Introduction

A recent study using latent profile analysis (LPA) showed four profiles of behavioral addictions (BAs) severity, including a profile with a general proclivity to addiction, two gender-specific profiles, one almost exclusively female and a second predominantly male, and a profile with low levels of BAs [1]. Comparisons of results using LPA and LCA with dichotomized scores (screened positively for at least one BA vs screened negatively) can provide valuable information on the relative usefulness of these two person-centered methods for investigating BAs and substance use disorders (SUDs), constituting two major classes of addictive behaviors. This is important as LCA, not infrequently. This paper provides more detailed analyses of the four basic clusters of BAs, prevalence, and co-occurrence of particular BAs within and between them, their gender and personality risk factors, relationships to well-being, and their interrelationships as emerging from the results of this and previous studies

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