The school-level factors associated with internet addiction among adolescents: A Cross-Sectional study in Bangladesh

Abstract

Objectives: The adolescents have increased the use of the Internet not ably over the last few years. Here we investigate the prevalence of Internet addiction among adolescents and identify the school-level factors on Internet addiction. Materials and Methods: This was a school-based cross-sectional study with 279 students aged 14-17years in the education year of 2016. The students Internet addiction was determined through the Ormans test, which consists of nine questions. Results: The prevalence of severe internet addiction among the surveyed adolescents was 2.51%, and moderate internet addiction was 64.87%. The study revealed from the multivariatelogisticmodel that the male students are 31% (OR = 0.69, confidence interval: 0.36-1.34) less likely to be moderate/severely internet addicted compared to female students. Similarly, considering the number of siblings, lonely child in a house is 3.12 times (OR = 3.12, CI: 1.14-9.29) more likely to have moderate/severe internet addiction compared to who has 3ormore siblings. The students with English medium studies (OR = 0.58) and the students who play out door games (OR = 0.56) are also negatively associated with severe internet addiction. Conclusion: The results indicate that the adolescents of grade nine students, Bangla medium studies and the students who don't play outside games are more prone to be the Internet addicted. Besides, female students are more in risk to be Internet addicted than male students. The findings will help us for strategies to be put in the school to reduce the Internet addiction among adolescents.