Evaluation of the level of internet addiction and its effects on academic performance among medical and paramedical college students in Iraq

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Nowadays a considerable population in the world uses the internet. Unfortunately, despite many interests and its specific advances in communication, the Internet is sentenced to have serious side effects. OBJECTIVE: To detect the percentage of internet addiction and its effect on academic performance among Medical and Paramedical students in some Iraqi universities. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 806 medical and paramedical students who were subjected to the online survey which includes demographic information associated with internet usage, and Young's Internet Addiction Test (YIAT) was applied to survey the grade of internet addiction. RESULTS: Results reveal a moderate level of addiction among students without significant variations between genders, high significant relationship (p<0.01) between students concerning their housing area, and strong significant variations (p<0.01) in the time of using the internet, besides strong significant differences (p<0.01) between internet addiction and academic performance. CONCLUSION: Medical and paramedical students practice the internet for diverse activities including learning despite their moderate grade of addiction there are no significant differences between genders. They employ it over 5 h/day, which affects negative tasks on their academic performance.