Internet addiction prevalence and contributing factors in the medical faculty students

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the internet addiction prevalence and contributing factors among medical faculty students in Pamukkale University. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among medical faculty students at Pamukkale University in November 2011. 386 (71.4%) students participated in the study. Data were collected with a questionnaire consisting of two parts. The first part of the questionnaire contains 24 questions including socio-demographic data, and the second part contains 20 questions of the Internet Addiction Test developed by Young. Family Affluence Scale was used to determine the socio-economic level of participants. Results: 211(54.7%) participants were girls. The mean score of dependency index is 22.9±15.6. In terms of internet use, 363 (94.0%) participants were found to be normal users, 20 (5.2%) were risky users and 3 (0.8%) were addicted users. The mean of internet use per week was 11.5±11.7 hours (the limits of 0 to 130 hours). In terms of the time spent on the internet, 44.3% (n=171) of participants used internet less than 1 hour per week; 28.2% (n=110), between 1-2 hours; and 27.5%.(n=105) more than 2 hours. Internet addiction prevalence was 7.4% in men and 4.7% in women (p = 0.371). However, 33.7% of men used the internet more than 2 hours per week, the ratio was 21.9% in women (p=0.017). Age, class, socioeconomic factors and smoking does not affect the status of being a risky or addicted user. Conclusion: The rate of risky or addicted use of internet is low among medical faculty students. Studies with a large number of participants to examine the factors that affect internet addiction in a more detailed way are needed to be done. Pam Med J 2013;6(3):134-142