Effect of Internet Addiction on Academic Performance of Medical Students (2016)

Abstract

Objective: To determine the frequency of internet addiction among medical students and its effects on their academic performance.

Study Design: Cross sectional comparative study. th Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Army Medical College, Rawalpindi from 5 January to the 15 May 2015.

Materials and Methods: Data collection tool was a closed ended, self-administered questionnaire, ‘Young’s Internet Addiction Test’. Duly filled questionnaires were returned by 322 MBBS students. The ‘Young’s Internet Addiction Questionnaire’ consists of 20 items with responses on a 5 point Likert scale. The total score which ranged from 20 to 100 was categorised into mild (normal), moderate (problem) and severe internet addiction. Scores ≤ 49 were classified as normal, 50-79 as moderate, and 80-100 as severe internet addiction. Academic and performance of the students was measured as the percent marks obtained in 2 professional MBBS examination. Students with marks 50 and above were declared as ‘pass’ and below 50 as ‘fail’. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22. Simple linear regression was applied to determine the effect of internet addiction on academic performance.

Results: There were 175 male and 147 female students in the study with mean age of 19.27±1.01 years. Two hundred and sixty-eight (83.2%) students were in normal category, 52 (16.1%) in moderate and 2 (0.6%) in severe category. There was significant difference in the proportion of students who passed or failed the exam in the two categories (normal vs moderate + serious) being low pass and high fail in ‘moderate+serious’ categories (p=0.02). The mean internet addiction score was negatively correlated with academic performance (p=0.01).

Conclusion: Excessive internet usage by medical students may lead to internet addiction which may adversely affect their academic performance.

Key words: Computer, Internet Addiction, Young’s Internet Addiction Test.