title: Proposed diagnostic criteria and the screening and diagnosing tool of Internet addiction in college students.
abstract: The aims of this study were to develop diagnostic criteria of Internet addiction for college students (DC-IA-C) with diagnostic interviews and to establish the optimal cutoff points of the Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS) for the purposes of screening for and making the diagnosis of Internet addiction. A total of 216 college students (132 male and 84 female) were recruited in the study. The results demonstrated that 5/6 cutoff points of criteria A in DC-IA-C had the best diagnostic accuracy (95.9%). Besides, 63/64 and 67/68 cutoff points of the CIAS were evaluated to be the best screening and diagnostic cutoff points, respectively. The DC-IA-C can provide health care professionals with a means to diagnose and communicate about Internet addiction among college students, and the screening and diagnostic cutoff points of CIAS could provide a screening instrument or a discriminative instrument in surveys for Internet addiction among college students.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chih-Hung
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Ju-Yu
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Yen
authors.forename: Sue-Huei
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ming-Jen
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Huang-Chi
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Cheng-Fang
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Yen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014495:Universities; D014584:User-Computer Interface