Internet addiction status and its relation with student's general health at Gonabad Medical University

Nowadays a large population in the world use internet. Unfortunately, despite many advantages and its positive changes in communication, Internet is condemned to have dangerous side effects, like Internet addiction that can be the most destructive one. The aim of this study is to survey the status of Internet addiction among Gonabad Medical University students and its relationship with their mental health.

This cross-sectional study was conducted at Gonabad Medical University in 2010. 400 students from different courses were selected by using stratified random sampling. After filling out informed consent forms, three other forms including individual questionnaire, IAT and GHQ-28 were given to the subjects to fill out. After controlling Data for accuracy, Data analysis was performed by SPSS software version 16 and frequency distribution, mean, one way ANOVA and Post Hoc test.

The results showed that 9.5% of the subjects were addicted to Internet, 21.5 percent were at risk. The Mean and standard deviation of general health score of the samples were 25.84±11.97. One way ANOVA test showed that general health scores at different levels of Internet addiction was significant (P<0.0001). Scores of physical impairment (P<0.0001), depressive disorder (P=0.002) and anxiety disorder (P=0.001) dimensions at different levels of Internet addiction showed a significant difference, but there were not significant difference in social functioning dimension.

Results have revealed there is a reverse significant relation between internet addiction and general health; in other words internet addicted subjects had more inappropriate general health.