Abstract
Purpose
Pathological Internet use has been predominantly studied in junior high/middle school-aged or older children; data from elementary/primary school-aged children, however, are scarce. The current study aimed to examine the prevalence of problematic Internet use, including pathological and maladaptive Internet use, in elementary and junior high school-aged children and the relationships between problematic Internet use and mental health problems and health-related quality of life.
Methods
The survey was conducted among children who attend national and public elementary and junior high schools in a medium-sized city in Japan; data were received from 3845 elementary school-aged and 4364 junior high school-aged children.
Results
Based on the Young’s Diagnostic Questionnaire score, the prevalence of pathological and maladaptive Internet use was 3.6% and 9.4% and 7.1% and 15.8% in elementary and junior high school-aged children, respectively. The prevalence of problematic Internet use, including pathological and maladaptive Internet use, consistently increased from the 4th grade to the 8th grade. In addition, the prevalence sharply increased between the 7th grade and the 8th grade. Our study revealed that children with pathological and maladaptive Internet use exhibited more severe depression and decreased health-related quality of life than those with adaptive Internet use.
Conclusions
Our results demonstrated that pathological Internet use is not uncommon even in elementary school-aged children and that those with pathological and maladaptive Internet use have severe mental health problems and decreased health-related quality of life, supporting the importance of providing these children with educational and preventive interventions against problematic Internet use and associated risk factors.
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Abbreviations
- PIU:
-
Pathological Internet use
- MIU:
-
Maladaptive Internet use
- AIU:
-
Adaptive Internet use
- YDQ:
-
Young’s Diagnostic Questionnaire
- HRQOL:
-
Health-related quality of life
- PedsQL:
-
Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 generic scale
- DSRS-C:
-
Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children
- ANOVA:
-
Analysis of variance
- CI:
-
Confidence interval
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Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the Hirosaki Institute of Neuroscience in Japan (K. N.), Hirosaki University Institutional Research Grant (K. N.), Japan Internet Safety Promotion Association (JISPA) (M. T. and M. A.), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, grant numbers 15H04889 (K. N.). This study was conducted in collaboration with Hirosaki University and Kodomo Minna Project commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Kodomo Minna Project provided no financial support to this study.
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The protocol of the current study has been approved by the Committee on Medical Ethics of Hirosaki University, and the current study has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Takahashi, M., Adachi, M., Nishimura, T. et al. Prevalence of pathological and maladaptive Internet use and the association with depression and health-related quality of life in Japanese elementary and junior high school-aged children. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 53, 1349–1359 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-018-1605-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-018-1605-z