Assessment of the Level of Internet Addiction among Nursing Students at Selected College, Kancheepuram District

Introduction :The explosive growth of internet in the last decade has had a huge impact on communication and interpersonal behavior. Addictive use of the internet is a new phenomenon that threatens to develop into a major public health issue in the near future in India. It is influencing the life style and behavior of common people especially students. Objectives: To assess the level of internet addiction among nursing students at selected college and to associate the level of internet addiction among nursing students at selected college with their demographic variables. Materials and Method: Research approach was quantitative and research design was descriptive research design.231 samples who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were selected by nonprobability convenient sampling technique. The tools of the study were: Section A - Demographic variables; Section B - A standardized Internet Addiction Test (IAT) scale to assess the level of internet addiction among nursing students, formulated by Dr. Kimberly Young. It comprises of 20 items that measures mild, moderate and severe internet addiction and Data collected were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The result reveals that in Demographic variable “Gender” is significantly associated with “Level of Internet Addiction” and “No. of Hours Spent on Internet/Day” is highly significant with “Level of Internet Addiction” and there was no significant association between the other demographic variables. Conclusion: The analysis reveals that 48 (20.8%) nursing students do not have internet addiction; Majority 150 (64.9%) have mild internet addiction; 33 (14.3%) have moderate internet addiction and none of them have severe internet addiction.