title: Internet addiction and its correlates among high school students: a preliminary study from Ahmedabad, India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Internet addiction (IA) is an upcoming and less researched entity in psychiatry, especially in low and middle income countries. This is the first such effort to study IA amongst Indian school students of class 11th and 12th and to find its correlation with socio-educational characteristics, internet use patterns and psychological variables, namely depression, anxiety and stress.
  
  
  METHODS
  Six hundred and twenty one students of six English medium schools of Ahmedabad participated, of which 552 (88.9%) who completed forms were analyzed. Young's Internet Addiction Test and 21 item Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale were used to measure IA and psychological variables respectively. Logistic regression analysis was applied to find the predictors of IA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixty-five (11.8%) students had IA; it was predicted by time spent online, usage of social networking sites and chat rooms, and also by presence of anxiety and stress. Age, gender and self-rated academic performance did not predict IA. There was a strong positive correlation between IA and depression, anxiety and stress.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  IA may be a relevant clinical construct, and needs extensive research even in developing nations. All high school students suffering from depression, anxiety and stress must be screened for IA, and vice versa.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Smt. NHL Municipal Medical College and Sheth V.S. General Hospital, Ellis Bridge, Ahmedabad 380006, India.
authors: Priyanka
authors: P
authors: Yadav
authors: Girish
authors: G
authors: Banwari
authors: Chirag
authors: C
authors: Parmar
authors: Rajesh
authors: R
authors: Maniar
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D057566:Self Report; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Anxiety; Depression; India; Internet addiction; School students; Stress