Publication:

Study on internet usage and internet addiction of medical students in universities of Myanmar

Background Internet is relatively new technology that can provide up to date knowledge in education. Even though the significant advantages, abuse of internet results in addiction disorder especially younger age. The aim of this study was to determine the internet utilization and internet addiction (IA) of third year medical students in medical universities of Myanmar.

Methods This was cross-sectional descriptive study in which the questionnaire mainly based on a questionnaire, IA test score. Total 412 medical students from medical universities were enrolled in the study.

Results This study shows 80.83% of students used internet more than five hours and 99.51% used internet every day. Common activities were social media 93.93%, entertainment 94.17%, watching movies 90.78%, communication 87.86% respectively. Among the reasons of use, education (p=0.003), shopping (0.002) and due to free wi-fi (p=0.006) were found to be significantly associated with IA. The majority (47.33%) was moderately addicted, (45.39%) was mildly addicted and 1.7 % was severely addicted. There was significant relationship between IA and time for more than five hours per day. Higher level of prevalence of IA was using online for watching movies, blogging, study information. Among the reasons of internet use, education, shopping and due to wi-fi were significantly associated with IA (p<0.05).

Conclusions IA is growing problem and medical students are vulnerable for IA and so necessary preventive measures are vital to provide safe usage of internet.