Association between Internet addiction and depression in Thai medical students at Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital

Abstract

ObjectiveTo study the extent of Internet addiction (IA) and its association with depression in Thai medical students.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted at Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital. Participants were first- to fifth-year medical students who agreed to participate in this study. Demographic characteristics and stress-related factors were derived from self-rated questionnaires. Depression was assessed using the Thai version of Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). A total score of five or greater derived from the Thai version of Young Diagnostic Questionnaire for Internet Addiction was classified as “possible IA”. Then chi-square test and logistic regression were used to evaluate the associations between possible IA, depression and associated factors.ResultsFrom 705 participants, 24.4% had possible IA and 28.8% had depression. There was statistically significant association between possible IA and depression (odds ratio (OR) 1.92, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.34–2.77, P-value <0.001). Logistic regression analysis illustrated that the odds of depression in possible IA group was 1.58 times of the group of normal Internet use (95% CI: 1.04–2.38, P-value = 0.031). Academic problems were found to be a significant predictor of both possible IA and depression.ConclusionIA was likely to be a common psychiatric problem among Thai medical students. The research has also shown that possible IA was associated with depression and academic problems. We suggest that surveillance of IA should be considered in medical schools.

Prevalence of Internet Addiction and Gaming Disorders in Southeast Asia: A Meta-Analysis

“…Additionally, the subgroup analyses on the moderating effects of population type and country on the between-study heterogeneity should be considered to be exploratory due to the small and unbalanced sample sizes of studies to represent each level of the moderators. In addition, the prevalence rate in one study, Ng et al [20], did not correlate with the raw data provided in the table summarizing the characteristics of the participants, and another study (Boonvisudhi et al [17]) did not report the gender breakdown based on the full sample which was included as a moderator in the current study. We have attempted to reach out to the authors via email for further clarifications, but to date, the authors have not responded.…”

“…We have attempted to reach out to the authors via email for further clarifications, but to date, the authors have not responded. For the purpose of our current meta-analysis, we have recomputed the prevalence using the raw data results instead of the reported prevalence for Ng et al [20] and excluded Boonvisudhi et al [17] for the meta-regression which used proportion of male participants as the moderator. Lastly, given that MEDLINE and Scopus often have overlaps in journal indexing, only MEDLINE but not Scopus was searched for this current study.…”

An era of digital slavery: a study on internet addiction among professional college students of Hassan, Karnataka

“…17 In our study, a significant association is seen between internet addiction and depression, which is consistent with those of other studies that have found a positive relationship between depression and internet addiction. 13,14,17,[29][30][31] In addition, supportive data can be found in the studies of depressed individuals, who are more likely to engage in Internet use. Therefore, it appears that if individuals can reduce their internet addiction, they may reduce their depression level.…”

“…19,20 Prevalence rates ranging from 20% to 65% were reported in many studies done in various parts of the world. 2,[6][7][8]11,13,15,19 Possible reasons for this are: (a) students have huge blocks of unstructured time, (b) First time away from parental control without anyone monitoring or censoring what they say or do online, (d) young students experience new problems of adapting to college life and finding new friends, and often end up seeking a companionship by using different applications of the Internet, (e) students desire to escape university sources of stress resulting from their obligations to pass exams, and complete their degrees in the prescribed time with reasonable marks, all of which make Internet overuse a significant cause of concern for parents and faculty. 11 Among the study subjects, 32.7% students reported mild addiction, 24% students reported moderate addiction and 1% reported severe addition.…”

“…12 When compared to other psychiatric comorbidities, depression also showed the strongest correlation with pathological Internet use. 13 Comorbid social media addiction and depression are a major clinical challenge as the outcomes of both conditions are worsened by the other. 14 Identifying problematic Internet use among college students is challenging because the Internet can serve as a tool in nearly every aspect of their daily living such as for communication, shopping, business, travel, research, entertainment, and more and it is hard to imagine a world without internet.…”