Characterizing the trend of and risk factors for IAD among teenagers in Macau

Abstract

Background

Internet addiction, along with the development of internet and internet accessing tools, is affecting more and more people. It can give impact on various aspects of people’s life, including physical and mental health, family relationship, peer relationship, academic performance and job performance. Internet addiction has been raised up to public health issue in some countries, such as China and Korea.

Teenagers, as the high risk group of internet addiction, a lot of studies have been done on the prevalence and characteristic among this group of population. However, internet addiction studies in Macau are rather limited, and are not up-to-date.

Objective

The objectives of this study are: 1) To evaluate the trend of internet addiction disorder among Macau teenagers. 2) Characterizing the internet addiction by internet usage pattern. 3) To investigate the risk factors and impact of Internet Addiction. 4) Provider information of Young’s internet diagnostic questionnaire (YDQ) and Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS) in measuring internet addiction disorder. 5) To estimate the prediction rate of self-evaluation of internet addiction.

Method

Cross-sectional study was used in the study. Cluster sampling was applied in the participated schools. One class was selected from each grade, and all students in that class would be included in the study. Invitation letter was sent to all the regular education secondary schools in Macau. All the data were collected by a self-administered questionnaire.

Result

Totally, 511 valid data from 6 schools was included in the analysis. By using YDQ and CIAS to measure internet addiction, 10.6% and 24.7% of the respondent were classified as internet addicts respectively. Some significant association was found between internet addiction and internet usage pattern, as well as the relationship between demographic information and internet usage. Grade, go online in cybercaf?, online hours (both weekday and weekend) and playing online game were found to be risk factors of internet addiction. Self-evaluation of IAD together with the awareness of internet addiction, was found to be significant predictor of internet addiction.

Conclusion

Internet addiction is suggested to have increasing trend in Macau among teenagers. Relationships between demographic information, internet usage pattern, internet addiction, together with the risk factor of IAD were discussed.

Teachers, social workers and parents should pay attention to teenagers’ internet usage pattern, especially for the risk factor. Help the teenager to recognize the problem of internet addiction. Education and promotion of internet addiction disorder should be provided to teenagers to prevent problematic internet usage.