The prevalence of mobile phone use across the world has increased greatly over the
past two decades. Problematic Mobile Phone Use (PMPU) has been studied in relation to public
health and comprises various behaviours, including dangerous, prohibited, and dependent use.
These types of problematic mobile phone behaviours are typically assessed with the short version of
the Problematic Mobile Phone Use Questionnaire (PMPUQ–SV). However, to date, no study has ever
examined the degree to which the PMPU scale assesses the same construct across different languages.
The aims of the present study were to (i) determine an optimal factor structure for the PMPUQ–SV
among university populations using eight versions of the scale (i.e., French, German, Hungarian,
English, Finnish, Italian, Polish, and Spanish); and (ii) simultaneously examine the measurement
invariance (MI) of the PMPUQ–SV across all languages. The whole study sample comprised 3038
participants. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were extracted
from the demographic and PMPUQ-SV items. Individual and multigroup confirmatory factor
analyses alongside MI analyses were conducted. Results showed a similar pattern of PMPU across
the translated scales. A three-factor model of the PMPUQ-SV fitted the data well and presented with
good psychometric properties. Six languages were validated independently, and five were compared
via measurement invariance for future cross-cultural comparisons. The present paper contributes to
the assessment of problematic mobile phone use because it is the first study to provide a cross-cultural
psychometric analysis of the PMPUQ-SV.