Internet addiction, nomophobia, anxiety, and depression levels related: observational study among a population of Italian nursing students

BACKGROUND: Internet addiction has been classified as a new dependence and it is associated to other psychiatric disorders, such as depression and social anxiety, also generating structural changes in the brain. The aim of this study was to determine the level of Internet addiction, the related levels of nomophobia and the possible psycho-physical consequences such as anxiety and depression among Italian nursing students.METHODS: From April until September 2020 in three Italian University departments was conducted an online survey, determining the level of Internet addiction through the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the levels of nomophobia through the Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q), the grade of state anxiety (STAI-Y1 and-Y2) and the level of depression through the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) associating a socio-demographic data collection sheet.RESULTS: 513 students participated to the survey aging 22.2 +/- 31.9 years, with a prevalence of women (N.=414; 80.7%). From a confrontation between the average of the scales, as a function of management of a website or a blog, statistically significant differences were observed for IAT (P<0.01); NMP-Q (P=0.001) and STAI-Y1 (P=0.005): those who managed a website, or a blog showed slightly more disorders than the others.CONCLUSIONS: In addition to treatments of diseases it is important to act also in the area of prevention with well structured psycho-pedagogical interventions.