Bidirectional relationships of psychiatric symptoms with internet addiction in college students: A prospective study.
BACKGROUND/PURPOSE
This prospective study evaluated the predictive ability of psychiatric symptoms at initial consultation for the occurrence and remission of Internet addiction during a 1-year follow-up period among college students. Furthermore, it evaluated the predictive ability of changes in psychiatric symptoms for Internet addiction at the initial consultation during the 1-year follow-up period among college students.


METHODS
Five hundred college students (262 women and 238 men) were recruited. The baseline and follow-up consultations measured the levels of Internet addiction and psychiatric symptoms using the Chen Internet Addiction Scale and Symptom Checklist-90 Revised, respectively.


RESULTS
The results indicated that severe interpersonal sensitivity and paranoia symptoms might predict the incidence of Internet addiction at 1-year follow-up. The college students with internet addiction did not have significant improvement in the severities of psychopathology, whereas those without internet addiction had significant improvement in obsession-compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid and psychoticism during the same period.


CONCLUSION
Psychiatric symptoms and Internet addiction exhibited bidirectional relationships in college students during the 1-year follow-up period.
['Lin|Yen-Ju|YJ|', 'Hsiao|Ray C|RC|', 'Liu|Tai-Ling|TL|', 'Yen|Cheng-Fang|CF|']
D016739:Behavior, Addictive D005260:Female D006801:Humans D015994:Incidence D020407:Internet D000082424:Internet Addiction Disorder D008297:Male D011446:Prospective Studies D013334:Students D014495:Universities
Psychiatric symptoms Internet addiction College student