DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i10.065

Pages: 4142-4144

There has been exponential growth in the use of internet since last decade in the whole world. Internet use is known to foster addictive behavior and may become major public health problem. Most medical schools in India are provided with free internet services, along with stressful medical education may leave them disproportionately vulnerable to internet addiction. The main objective of this study was to measure prevalence of internet addiction and the usage pattern among undergraduate medical students. The present cross-sectional study was carried out among 150 undergraduate students of final year MBBS, selected by simple random sampling, in SVS Medical College, Mahabubnagar. A 20 item Young’s Internet Addiction test which is a Likert scale based interview schedule was used to measure the prevalence of internet addiction. Data was analyzed using SPSS version22. Chi square test was applied and p value <0.05 considered significant. Among the 150 study subjects, 57.3 %( 86) were males and 42.6 %( 64) were females. Males were more addicted to internet than females. The prevalence of internet addiction among the study subjects in the present study was 53.33 %( 80) mild, 19.33 %( 29) moderate, while 28 %( 42) students reported normal internet usage. It was found that severity of internet addiction is in inverse relationship with academic performance. Internet addiction is a growing health problem among medical students, hence necessary preventive and therapeutic interventions are vital to promote healthy and safe usage of Internet.