Original Research Article
Year: 2021 | Month: February | Volume: 11 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 243-250
Internet Addiction, Sleep Quality and Depression among Undergraduate Medical Students in Nepal
Babita Singh1, Kaushal Kumar Singh2, Jafre Alam Ansari3
1Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, National Medical College Teaching Hospital, Birgunj, Nepal
2Lecturer, Department of Dentistry, National Medical College Teaching Hospital, Birgunj, Nepal
3Instructor, Department of Nursing, National Medical College Teaching Hospital, Birgunj, Nepal
Corresponding Author: Babita Singh
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The virtual life of internet has taken away the real-life experiences. Prevalence of internet addiction, poor sleep quality and depression is increasing worldwide. Medical education is grooming in Nepal, but the evidence on, internet addiction, quality of sleep and depression in undergraduate medical students in Nepal is lacking.
Objective: To find out the prevalence of internet addiction, poor sleep quality and depression among undergraduate medical students and to measure the associations of poor sleep quality, internet addiction and depression with selected variables.
Methods: A descriptive cross sectional, questionnaire-based survey was carried out among 506 undergraduate medical students enrolled from first year to final year at two medical colleges in Lalitpur and Birgunj in Nepal. The data were collected using Young’s 20-item Internet Addiction Test (IAT), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Both descriptive (frequency, percentage) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test) were used to analyze data in SPSS vs20.
Results: The proportion of participants meeting criteria for poor sleep quality was 42.29%, internet addiction was 39.33% and depression was 16.60%. There was significant association of poor sleep quality with age (p<0.001), tobacco use (p<0.001), sexually active behaviour (p<0.001) and academic performance (p<0.001). Similarly, there was significant association of internet addiction with age (p<0.001), sex (p<0.001), sexually active behaviour (p<0.001) and academic performance (p<0.001). Likewise findings also revealed that there was significant association of depression with age (p=0.001), sex (p<0.001), year of study (p<0.001), sexually active behaviour (p=0.035) and academic performance (p=0.011)
Conclusion: The study findings reveal a high prevalence of poor sleep quality, internet addiction and depression in undergraduate medical students from Nepal. Furthermore, the findings suggest that sleep quality, internet addiction and depressive symptoms are associated with age, sex, sexually active behavior, tobacco use, year of study and academic performance. So, to lower the burden of depressive symptoms, enhance the quality of sleep and reduce the addiction of internet among undergraduate students, educational institution can play a vital role by considering these associated factors.
Key words: Depression, internet addiction, medical students, sleep quality, Nepal.