Internet addiction and its correlates among undergraduate students of health sciences in coastal Karnataka

Internet has become the most important part of everyone’s life, especially the youth who are found to be dependent on it for various reasons, which is a direct effect of rapid expansion of technology around the globe. The present study was conducted to assess the magnitude of internet addiction among undergraduate students of health sciences of coastal Karnataka and to find the risk factors for internet addiction among undergraduate students of health sciences of coastal Karnataka. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1300 students of a private university of coastal Karnataka. A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Young’s Internet addiction test and depression, anxiety and stress test. Descriptive statistics were reported, and Chi-square test was used to assess the relationship between expected outcomes. Out of these 884 (68%) were females and 416 (32%) were males. Among the 1300 participants, 1118 (86%) were normal users, 156 (12%) had mild addiction, 26 (2%) had moderate to severe addiction.