Internet addiction among medical and health sciences students and its association with usage patterns - a cross sectional study in South India

Abstract

Background: The explosive growth of the internet in the last decade has had a huge impact on communication and interpersonal behaviour. Though the internet was originally designed to facilitate communication and research activities, the dramatic increase in the use of the internet has led to internet addiction. Aims and objectives: This study was conducted with the objective to determine the prevalence of internet addiction among medical and health sciences students and its association with usage patterns. Materials and methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on medical and health sciences students, at PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and research, Coimbatore, India. A total of 490 students were selected by simple random sampling. Validated Young’s internet addiction scale consisting of 20 items, based upon five point likert scale was used to measure internet addiction and subjects were classified into normal user (score<50) and addicted user (score ≥50). Descriptive statistics, univariate analysis and logistic regression were done to analyse the data. Results: The prevalence of internet addiction was 28.57%. The usage patterns significantly associated with internet addiction were chatting while online (p<0.05), making friends through online (p<0.001), online purchases (p<0.01), playing games online(p<0.001) and using internet for social networking (p<0.05).Conclusion: Internet addiction is a growing problem among medical and health sciences students. It is essential to develop methods for controlling internet addiction which is vital for promoting healthy and safe use of internet.