Mental Well-being and Internet Addiction: Insights from Medical Undergraduates

Abstract

Background: During college, people are most prone to experiencing psychological concerns problems including mood disorders, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and drug misuse. If these problems aren't treated right away, they might become worse and lead to suicidal behavior. At the same time, internet addiction, which is when people spend too much time on the internet and can't stop, is now recognized as a major public health concern issue throughout globally. The World Health Organization (2018) says that certain kinds of internet usage are linked to bad mental health effects, such a higher risk of anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems. Aim & Objective: This study aims to examine how medical students now utilize the internet and how it affects their mental health. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional research was done with 300 medical undergraduate students who were chosen at random from 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and final year MBBS students. Material & Methods: The online The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) served as the instrument to assess online compulsive use. We utilized the DASS-21 scale to look at how depressed, anxious, and stressed people were. We also utilized Spearman's rank correlation test to see how internet addiction, a correlation was observed among depression, anxiety, and stress. Results: Most people who are addicted to the internet are normal (65.7%), while 29.6% are mildly addicted, 4.0% are moderately addicted, and 0.67% are severely addicted. Most of the people in the study were normal when it came to depression (92.3%), anxiety (90.7%), and stress (87.0%). Only a tiny number of them had mild to moderate levels of these illnesses. More specifically, 6.7% of them have minor depression, 5.3% have mild anxiety, and 9.3% have mild stress. The scatter plot that compared the Young's scale score to the DASS scale score for depression, anxiety, and stress showed indicating the presence of was a significant positive association among depression as well as internet use, a strong favorable relationship among internet use as well as anxiety, as well as a weak favorable relationship among internet use as well as stress. Recommendation: Start programmes to teach people about the indicators of of internet addiction and its impact on mental health. Educational campaigns may also help students better understand and control their online usage.