Problematic Internet Use in the Psychiatric Sample Compared Community Sample

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the characteristics of internet use and Problematic Internet Use (PIU) in adolescents with and without psychiatric disorder. Methods: The present study was performed on 884 adolescents, who were in the age group of 12 to 18 years. Each o psychiatric sample (PS) and community sample (CS) included 442 age/gender matched adolescents. PS were patients at the child and adolescent psychiatry departments of Cukurova, Mersin and Akdeniz Universities. Online Cognition Scale (OCS) was used for PIU. Results: The most common diagnoses in PS were attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; n: 260), followed by anxiety disorders (AD; n: 96), mood disorders (MD; n: 55), and other disorders (OD; n: 31, 7.0%). 23.3% of participants in PS and 10.6% in CS reported use of internet for more than 8 hours/week (p=0.0001). Additionally, mean OCS scores of participants in PS were significantly higher than those in CS (p=0.0001). The highest OCS score average was observed in the ADHD group and it was significantly higher than that in CS (p=0.0001). Conclusion: This study has supported the relationship between PIU and psychopathology among adolescents which is more pronounced in adolescents with ADHD. (Archives of Neuropsychiatry 2010;47:241-6)