General psychological symptoms and relation to social phobia of internet usage in university students

INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE: It has been investigated that in the literature, internet users are internet addicts of 3 to 55% and these rates vary according to they live in country and the social statues. The use of problematic internet users cause of Social anxiety-avoidance etc. psychological symptom. In our study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between general psychiatric symptoms and social anxiety disorder and problematic internet use in university students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The work as the planned cross-sectional study was carried out among students studying at Yalova University during the 2015-2016 education years. The sample consisted of 510 students who accepted the research using stratified random sampling method. 46 students who do not fill the data appropriately and 4 patients with psychiatric disease were excluded from the study and 460 students were evaluated. Data were collected by the researcher prepared using the Socio-demographic Data Form with which is previously validated and reliable the Problematic Internet Usage Scale Symptom Screening Test (SCL-90) and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. The data in computer environment were analyzed by Mann Whitney-U test, Kruskal Wallis variance analysis and Spearman correlation tests. The normal distribution fitness of continuous variables was checked using the Shapiro-Wilks test. Crombah's Alpha values were used when the reliability of the scales was investigated. RESULTS: The number of participants in the study, 50,7 % of the students were female and 49,3 % were male and 34.8% of the students use the internet between 2-4 hours a day, 28.3% of them use between 4-6 hours, and 18.7% of them use the internet 6 hours and above. The Cronbach's Alpha coefficients of the scales used in the study were found to be 0,90 ≤ α ≤ 1,00. Students' problematic internet usage (PIU) score is 68.25 ± 23.718 in average. (Min. 33, Max 161). There was a significant correlation between the score obtained from PIU and the internet usage frequency and the class, financial status and with whom the students lived (p<0.05).There was a positive correlation with moderate level among SCL-90 total score, PIU total score and the LBW social phobia symptoms scale and their subscales (P<0.05). As a result of the research, the correlation coefficients was found; SCL-90 total score was 0,440, LBW total score was 0,441, SCL depression was 0,403, SCL-anxiety was 0.408, LBW anxiety was 0,414, SCL-phobia was 0,425, LBW avoidance was 0,437 and SCL-psychoticity was 0,452, respectively. CONCLUSION: As a result of the research, we can say that university students are among the risky groups in terms of problematic internet usage because of abuse of the internet and long term patrols. As the use of problematic internet increases, behavioral disorders, general psychological symptoms and social phobia also increase.