Quality of life in medical students with internet addiction

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Widespread use of the internet is a serious concern among university students worldwide. Internet addiction affects the students’ physically and psychologically and poses social and environmental challenges to their well-being. This study was used to assess the levels of internet addiction among medical students at a major university in Saudi Arabia and to measure the quality of life among these students. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was used to gain responses from 437 students using questionnaire surveys. These questionnaires were based on the World Health Organization's standard quality of life survey questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). RESULTS: Analysis of the results displayed that the students were only moderately addicted to the internet. Moreover, with respect to the quality of life, these students scored high in physical, social, psychological, and environmental sub-domains of the quality of life questionnaire survey. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide evidence that, in contrast to findings in some other countries, medical students in Saudi Arabia enjoy a better quality of life with moderate internet addiction levels. Future studies can broaden the scope of the survey methodology used in this paper to cover medical students in other universities in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, correlations with exam scores can be established using case-control studies for a more thorough analysis. Therefore, this study provides a significant positive step in the direction of further research in this field.