Study of Internet Addiction & Daytime Sleepiness in Medical students & Other Students of Gujarat, India.

Abstract

Context : Internet has been a boon in modern human history by the benefits it gives to the people, enriching their
lives. But It has turned out to be a bane for an equal number of people because it is addictive.Internet addiction is
linked with sleep deprivation and consequently day time sleepiness.
Aim : Current study was undertaken to assess the presence of internet overuse and addiction & its effects on
sleep in general & daytime particularly. And to compare it between medical students and other students.
Setting - The study was at various graduate colleges within the city of (city name masked for blinding). Total 316
under-graduate students enrolled in the study using random sampling method from 5 educational institutes.
Method : Participants were administered a self-administered questionnaire containing sociodemographic
details,Young's internet addiction test (IAT) and Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS).Statistical analysis –Data was
collected, tabulated &analyzed using Microsoft Excel worksheet and GraphPad version 3.0. For deriving relation
between Internet addiction & daytime sleepiness, Spearman Correlation coefficient was used.
Results : We found that both groups had significant Internet addiction & it was significantly associated with
excessive daytime sleepiness. 52% of medical students and 51% of other students were problematic internet
users. We also noted that results between both medical student&other student group were almost similar.
Conclusion : The number of problematic internet users is high & leading to daytime sleepiness in both the groups
equally, so steps must be taken to reduce the Internet overuse.
Key-message : Internet addiction is clearly present in both groups and it is having significant effect on their sleep
as shown by increase in day-time sleepiness. This has to be addressed at the level of educational institutes.