Internet Addiction and Associated Factors among Medical Students: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The internet has ingrained itself into our daily lives. It is utilised for many different things, including
communication, information searching, playing games, keeping track of health programmes, and the list goes
on. Medical students are one of the vulnerable groups whose academic activities may be negatively impacted by
increased internet usage. hence this, study aimsto determine the factors associated with Internet Addiction and to
estimate the prevalence of Internet Addiction among medical students.
Materials and Methods: Internet Addiction Test (IAT) scale questionnaire was used to collect data from all the
Medical students of ESIC Medical College and hospital, through self-administered questionnaire. Over a period of
3 months a total of 283 responses were received. Further analysis was done using SPSS version 28.0.
Results: The prevalence of Internet Addiction was found to be 36.70%. A statistically significant association was
found between duration spent with internet and Internet Addiction, but no other statistically significant association
was found between Internet Addiction and other factors.
Conclusions: Internet addiction is an emerging problem of modern era, which has an impact on mental health. It
is need of the hour for early recognition of internet addiction and thereby takes appropriate measures to manage
and reduce it.