The relationship between internet addiction and risk of suboptimal health status among Chinese college students

Internet addiction (IA) is a prevalent trend among college students, and the relationship between severe IA and poor health status among college students has been well established. However, whether IA is associated with suboptimal health status (SHS) in college students is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the association between IA and SHS risk in Chinese college students. We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess whether IA was related to SHS risk in 2265 college students in Shenyang, China. SHS was assessed using the Suboptimal Health Status Questionnaire with a cutoff score of ≥35 to document SHS. IA was assessed using the validated 20-item Young’s Internet Addiction Test with cutoff scores of 31–49 and 50–100 for mile and moderate-to-severe cases, respectively. The prevalence rate of SHS was 54.0%. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the IA categories were positively related to a higher risk of SHS. The odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) for SHS across IA categories were 1.00, 7.66 (6.00, 9.78), and 27.93 (20.95, 37.24) (P for trend: <.001) after adjusting for multiple confounding factors. This is the first cross-sectional study to demonstrate that IA is independently associated with SHS. This finding suggests that IA is a negative risk factor for SHS.