Association Of Anxiety And Quality Of Life With Internet Addiction Among Medical Students.

ABSTRACT

Objective: Internet addiction is characterized by excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges or behaviours regarding computer use and Internet access that lead to impairment or distress in individual’s psychological state. This study was aimed to assess the frequency of internet addiction and its possible association with anxiety severity and quality of life among medical students. Methods: This was an observational, cross sectional, single-centred, self-assessable questionnaire based study administrated among 525 consenting medical students. The participants were assessed by proforma containing demographic details,variables related with internet use, questionnaires of IAT (Internet Addiction Test for Internet Use), BAI (Beck’s Anxiety Inventory) and WHOQOL-BREF (World health organization quality of life assessment scale). Statistical data were analysed by Graph Pad InStat version 3.06 using Chi–square test and Mann-Whitney test. Results: Frequency of problematic users among medical students was 9.3 % with frequency of internet addiction 0.9%.Participants with problematic internet use were likely to experience high severity of anxiety (p<0.0001) and poorer quality of life in psychological (p= 0.01) and environmental domain (p=0.03). Conclusion: Participants with problematic internet use were more likely to experience anxiety symptoms and poor quality of life and vice a versa. [Dr.Nidhi N NJIRM 2016; 7(5)9-13]