Evaluation of Internet Addiction Level of Medical Faculty Students And Affecting Factors

Aim: Internet addiction is a growing disease and has increased especially among adolescents and young adults. In this study, it was aimed to investigate internet addiction of 1.-3. grade Medical Faculty students and related factors. Materials and Methods: 1.-3. grade Medical Faculty students were included in this cross-sectional study, 407 students (80.1%) participated. A questionnaire including 42 questions about internet usage and Young’s Internet Addiction Scale was used to collect socio-demographic data. The internet addiction of the students was determined by the Likert Scale. After obtaining the ethics permission, the questionnaire was applied between April 1 - May 31, 2018. Results: 99.5% of the participants were using internet. Young Internet Addiction Test mean score was found to be 29.92±16.33. 19.4% of the students (79 people) were possible addicts and 3%(12 people) were addicts. Between addicted students and others there was a significant difference according to use of internet for; more than two hours a day, searching information, lesson-training-research, news reading, video conversation and having complaints of sleeplessness because of internet usage. In terms of ways which students use to connect to the internet, there was no significant difference between wireless and mobile phone at home however, connections from library, university, cafe-restaurant networks were found to be significantly higher in addicted and probable addicted students than others. Conclusion: The internet addiction among the Medical Faculty students was found to be low. New studies on risk factors and measures are needed to prevent internet addiction among students