The Relationship Between Internet Addiction and General Health in Students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences-Iran, 2015: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Objectives: The Internet is a global system that is increasingly used by the public, especially university students, as a useful tool to access information sources. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Internet addiction and general health in students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, during year 2015. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 650 students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, west of Iran, during year 2015. The participants were volunteers and were selected by stratified sampling. The data collection tool was the Young internet addiction test and general health questionnaire (GHQ28). Data was analyzed by logistic regression and analysis of variance methods. Results: Mean age of students was 22 ± 4.01 years old. The mean score of Internet addiction was 77.08 ± 17.24 and mean score of general health was 59.38 ± 9.54. Analysis of variance method showed that the score of all general health aspects (except social functioning) was increased significantly in the addicted group in comparison with normal and suspected groups (all Ps < 0.001). In addition, risk of internet addiction in females was 1.81 (95% CI: 1.3 - 2.5) times more than males. Pearson correlation coefficients showed that internet addiction score increased in the same direction as all general health aspects (all P < 0.001). Conclusions: Results showed that overuse of the Internet is causing serious problems for general health in students of medical universities.