Title: Internet addiction and its association with sleep and depressive symptoms of undergraduate medical and nursing students of BPKIHS

Biography:

Surya Raj Profundity knowledge on Statistics/Biostatistics, research methods and data analysis along with teaching experiences for Masters/Bachelors level medical,public health, nursing and allied health sciences students. Conducted several health researches and excellent disseminating skill through international and national publications. Worked as a Consultant for many INGOs and NGOs.

Abstract

In the new generation, the internet has become an important tool for education, entertainment, communication and information-sharing. At the same time the rise of new generation gadgets, the risk of Internet Addiction (IA) is emerging as a significant behavioral addiction pandemic to be tackled worldwide. Excessive internet usage in university students results not only in psychological but physical problems which leads to deterioration in their academic performance. Thus it is imperative to find out the magnitude of IA and its association with sleep and depressive symptoms.

A cross-sectional study was conducted to select appropriate samples of 211 students using systematic random sampling method.  Bivariate and multiple regression analysis were performed to find out significant association of different possible factors with IA.

Prevalence of internet addiction was estimated as 23.2% in life experienced among MBBS and BSc. Nursing students. Among those who were addicted to the internet, 32.7% were suffering from some form of clinical insomnia and 42.9% were suffering from some form of major depression. Hence those who were addicted to the internet were 7 times more likely to suffer from insomnia (p<0.001) and 4 times more likely to suffer from major depression (p<0.001). However no such significance was found between internet addiction and the socio-demographic profile. Also, it was found that internet addicted students were 3 times more likely to have problematic alcohol use. The association between internet addiction and alcohol use was also statistically significant (p<0.05). In our study we found the prevalence of internet addiction to be quite high and a significant association was seen between internet addiction, insomnia, depression and problematic alcohol use.The proper counseling and timely rehabilitation can be provided to those who are in need.