الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The beginning of the 21st century shows an explosive growth of internet usage worldwide, particularly in the developing countries. Originally devised for information exchange and research purpose, internet has literally percolated every aspect of human life including social communication, education, research, health seeking, banking, business, shopping, administration, and entertainment. Internet has been an essential part of our lives and today, we cannot imagine our lives without internet.
Many online courses are now available for the medical students interested in pursuing such courses, to add to their credentials. A number of studies across the world proved the presence of internet addiction especially among adolescents. Research specifically on internet addiction among young adults in health care system, is relatively new and limited.
The internet addiction has been found to be significantly associated with some psychological, physical, mental as well as social problems including impaired function at work, impaired academic performance, sleep deprivation, poor dietary habits, headache, eye strain, social isolation, and relationship problems.
The aim of the current study was to reveal the prevalence, pattern, trend and related factors to IAD among medical students in Alexandria University.
A cross-sectional study had been carried out during the academic year 2018/2019. Consented, stratified and randomly selected 400 participants including undergraduates (from 1st to 6th year and intern) and postgraduates (fresh graduated tutors) were interviewed.
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data about; socio-demographic characters, KAP and negative consequences about internet use and Young’s IAT scale.
The results of the present study can be summarized as follows:
Considering the socio-demographic characters, Postgraduates were statistically significant older than undergraduates (the medians were 28.5 years compared to 24 years) and P<0.001. On the other hand, there are no statistical significant differences regarding other characters between undergraduate and postgraduate Alexandrian medical students.
Regarding the prevalence of IAD, the present study revealed that 50.5% of Alexandria medical students suffered from mild IAD (31-49), 34.3% s uffered from moderate IAD (50-79), 15.2% were normal uses (0-30) and none of them suffered from severe IAD (80-100). The median score of IAT was 48 that correspond to mild IAD.
In the present study, if both the percent distribution and the median IAT scores for the twenty questions and the six sub-items were considered to reveal the pattern of IAD, the following were observed:.
Regarding lack of control (3 questions- median values of the average total scores=2.7), more than one half of medical students (18.9%, 18.3% and 18%) were either always, frequently or often mentioning that others in their life complain to them about the amount of time they spend online (Q5).
Regarding anticipation (2 questions- median values of the average total scores=2.5), 20.6% of Alexandria medical students frequently check their email before something else that they need to do (Q7).