INTERNET ADDICTION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH DRUG ADDICTION IN THE STUDENTS OF KURDISTAN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, 2016

Background and Aim : Internet is one of the world s most popular social media that addiction to it, is rapidly increasing. This study aimed to determine the level of Internet addiction and its relationship with drug addiction in the students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. Methods : This cross-sectional study was conducted in the first semester of 2016. 385 students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences were selected. For data sampling, cluster sampling method was used. Each college was considered as a cluster. Samples from each college were selected randomly. The tool of data collection was a standard questionnaire including 35 questions. The first part of the questionnaire, were demographic questions and the second part of it was the main questions about determination of prevalence of internet addiction and its relationship to drug addiction. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS version 21and descriptive and analytical statistics formula. Results : 95.6% of the students have filled and returned the questionnaires. The findings of the study showed that 80 students (21.7%) did not have any dependency to Internet. 135 (36.7%) of them had slight dependency, 108 (29.3%) had moderate dependency and 45 (12.2%) of them had severe dependency. The mean and S.D of internet addiction in this study was 35.02±12.37. This means that internet addiction in the respondents was slight. 23 (6.25%) of the samples revealed that internet addiction causes addiction to cigarettes and 67 (18.2%) of them displayed that internet addiction causes drug addiction. There is a significant relationship between internet addiction and gender (p=0.002), marital status (p=0.003), habitat (p=0.004) and having a personal computer (p=0.0003).Conclusion : Due to the high level of mild addiction to internet, Workshops on the advantages and disadvantages of using the internet and next implications of internet dependency for the academic students is suggested.

Keywords:

Internet Addiction , Drug Addiction , Student , University , Dependency to Internet