Association of Internet Addiction and Mental Disorders in Medical Students: A Systematic Review

Internet addiction disorder (IAD) is associated with psychological, physical, and social problems, including impaired academic performance. The objective of this review was to investigate the relationship between IAD and psychiatric disorders in medical students.

A search of PubMed, LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature), Scopus, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Science Direct was performed using the following keywords: internet addiction disorder OR problematic internet use OR pathological internet use OR internet overuse OR heavy internet use AND medical students AND internet addiction OR problematic internet use OR pathological internet use OR internet overuse OR heavy internet use AND physicians.

Articles were selected and extracted from the online databases. Articles were included if they were available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese; addressed IAD and psychiatric disorders; contained original data; and provided sufficient data for the calculation of effect sizes. Included articles were published between March 2012 and March 2022.

The correlations between internet addiction and depression, anxiety, stress, and sleep disorders were estimated using R software and the dmetar package with meta-analytic procedures.

A total of 2,226 studies were identified, including 23 studies (21,582) that were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. All articles were about medical students. There was a small positive correlation between IAD and sleep disorders (P = .0515). There was a moderate correlation between anxiety (P = .022), depression (P = .0002), and stress (P = .0322) and IAD.

IAD is comorbid with psychiatric diseases, and this correlation was observed in this review. We suggest early identification and management of IAD, as it results in unfavorable mental health outcomes and impacts the work performance of medical students and physicians.

Prim Care Companion CNS Disord. 2023;25(3):22r03384.

Author affiliations are listed at the end of this article.