THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN INTERNET ADDICTION AND
DEPRESSION AMONG UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL
STUDENTS IN JORDAN. A cross-sectional design. (Preprint)
Authors: Eid Haifa 
Published: July 2022

BACKGROUND

Historically, the internet began to expand on a global scale in the 1990s. Since then, the
internet has become an essential part of our life (Curran et al., 2016). Evidence has shown an
explosive growth of internet usage worldwide (Srijampana et al.,2014). The internet is not a
harmful technology however, overuse will expose university students to addiction, which leads
to negative health outcomes, such as depression, social isolation, and poor university
performance (Sert et al., 2019).
According to Curran et al., 2016, the prevalence of internet users has risen exponentially to 1
billion in 2019 from 2005 in Geneva to reach 4.1 billion in 2019. In Europe and the United
States of America, the use of the internet increased from 7.9% - to 25.2% in (2018).
Nevertheless, internet availability at home, at university, and generally everywhere has led to
public health concerns such as internet addiction, social isolation, and association with
depression (Tang et al., 2017; Seki et al., 2019). The prevalence of internet use has increased
in Jordan rapidly. In Jordan, there was an increase in internet users from 5.3 million users in
2013 to 8.7 million in 2019 (Internet World Statistics, 2019). University students were more
vulnerable to internet addiction because of ease of access to the internet and the absence of
self-control (Jin et al., 2019; Lebni et al., 2019).
Internet addiction (IA) can be defined as an un-control use of and access to the internet that
leads to impairment in university students’ daily activities, distress, and negative health
consequences, therefore, their lives become increasingly unmanageable (Weinstein &
Lejoyeux, 2010). Singh and Paliwal, (2020) defined internet addiction as a behavior pattern of
excessive internet that use has similarities to substance addiction, such as tolerance,
withdrawal, recurrent failure to cut or quit, and impairment in daily life. Similarly, Seki,
(2019) defined internet addiction as like addiction of alcoholism. Furthermore, Lebni et al.
(2019) reported that internet addiction is a true modern dependency addiction, like drug
addiction and other types of dependency, and can be considered a social crisis with varying
degrees of psychological and social dysfunction. Internet addiction is correlated with
depression. Alzayyat et al., (2015) conducted a study in Jordan and found that depression is the
most prominent psychiatric symptom associated with internet addiction.
Depression is viewed as a constellation of negative emotions and behaviors among university
students (Liang et al., 2016; Jain et al., 2020). It includes feelings of worthlessness and
loneliness, crying, worrying about doing terrible things, and feeling to be perfect. Some evidence
indicates that depression is strongly related to other psychological and behavioral problems such
as stress, and anxiety (Liang et al., 2016). Bhat and Kawa, (2015) conducted a study in Kashmir
with a sample of 210 postgraduate students at Kashmir University to examine their internet use
status and depression. The researcher found that male university students experienced more
internet addiction compared to female students. The results show that there is a significant
positive association between internet addiction and depression (Javaeed et al., 2019). According
to Mohebi et al. (2018), 45.5% of university students were addicted to the internet and were
suffering from psychological and social dysfunction. Most university students suffer from
internet addiction and have depressive symptoms, such as loneliness, isolation, and depression.
According to these results, it can be alarming that half of the students had poor mental health and
there was a significant association between depression and internet addiction (Liang et al., 2016;
Jain et al., 2020). There is a critical research gap when it comes to the local studies conducted in
Jordan and the surrounding nations, the lack of studies on this subject causes ambiguity about
university students in Jordan. (Alzayyat et al., 2015; Rabadi et al., 2017).

OBJECTIVE

To assess the association between internet addiction and depression among undergraduate
health science faculties university students in Jordan.

METHODS

Study design & participants
A correlational cross-sectional quantitative approach was used to assess the association between
internet addiction and depression among undergraduate health science facilities students in
Jordan. The required sample size was 299 participants. The study was conducted at Jordan
University of Science and Technology (JUST). A governmental university that is affiliated with
the Ministry of Education in Jordan, located on the outskirts of Irbid, at AL Ramtha in north
Jordan. A self-administered questionnaire was adapted from the questionnaire used by
Alhantoushi & Alabdullatif, (2014). The questionnaire consisted of three parts: Section one is,
demographic characteristics. Section two is, Internet Addiction Test (IAT) which consists of 20
items. The third section is related to, depression scale and consists of 20 items by Center of
Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-DS). Table- 1 Demographic characteristics of the
participants.

RESULTS

A positive association between internet addiction and depression. The internet addiction
among the participation sample was 8.4%, and 78% for depression. The results suggested that
there was a statistically significant difference between the lecture not attended and internet
addiction.

CONCLUSIONS

Internet addiction is prevalent among medical students at JUST University, showing that 8.4% of
medical students are addicted to the internet, and the prevalence of depression among enrolled
samples was 78%. Students with high levels of depression are more likely to be internet addicts.
So, these results and findings increase our understanding of the association between internet
addiction and depression. Our data and findings emphasize important education about internet
addiction to improve the quality of educational programmers provided to university students. The
first step of treating is awareness of these problems, this is often the most challenging step for
students. Oftentimes the problem is realized with assistance from family, friends, and academic
teachers are the primary educators who help in clinical areas in administrators and accomplished
by implementing educational programs for solving these issues.

CLINICALTRIAL

Based on our findings in this study, the following recommendation can be taken into
consideration. Establishing awareness sessions about internet addiction and the resulting
psychological and social problems for students. Building therapeutic counseling programs for
the category of students who are addicted to the internet both genders and who suffer from
depression, so that these programs contribute to alleviating their Internet addiction and
depression. Establishing studies dealing with the internet addiction variable and applying them
to other samples in society