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Associations Between Internet Addiction and Gender, Anxiety, Coping Styles and Acceptance in University Freshmen in South China.

ABSTRACT: Objective: Internet addiction (IA) has become a global public health issue. Although previous studies revealed several risk factors related to IA, most of them focused on the western societies. The present study assesses the relationships between gender and other factors with IA in university freshmen in the South China. Methods: A total of 3,380 first-year college students (1,995 males and 1,385 females) participated in an evaluation of their experiences surfing on the Internet. We investigated the severity of IA in the participants by considering their psychological characteristics, such as acceptance, anxiety levels, and coping styles. Then, we compared the results between males and females and between those in addiction group (Chinese Internet Addiction Scale, CIAS, scores≥64) and non-addiction group (CIAS scores ≤27). We also conducted a logistic regression analysis to detect the relationships between severity of IA and psychological characteristics and gender differences. Results: We observed that males showed significantly higher scores in CIAS than females. The addiction group exhibited significantly higher state anxiety and trait anxiety, and experienced less acceptance of self and others and acceptance by others, and adopted less positive coping style and preferred negative coping style than non-addiction group. The logistic regression analysis revealed that three factors (negative coping styles, acceptance of self and others, state anxiety levels) had a significant association with more severe IA. Conclusion: Gender differences affect the severity of IA in the first-year students in South China. Males with state anxiety and negative coping styles deserve attention because they are likely to be addicted to the Internet. Thus, health practitioners should perform efficient strategies while considering gender differences to precaution first-year college students with the risk factors for IA.

SUBMITTER: Shan X

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8200474 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Objective: The Internet can offer a seemingly safe haven for those being disappointed by relationships in the "offline world". Although the Internet can provide lonely people with opportunities to seek for help and support online, complete withdrawal from the offline world comes with costs. It is discussed if people can even become "addicted" to the Internet. Of note, meanwhile, many researchers prefer the term Internet use disorder (IUD) instead of using the term "Internet addiction". To illustrate the importance of one's own social network supporting a person in everyday life, we investigated, for the first time to our knowledge, how social resources in terms of quality and quantity might represent a buffer against the development of IUD. Furthermore, anxiety related coping styles are investigated as a further independent variable likely impacting on the development of an IUD. Method: In the present work, N = 567 participants (n = 164 males and n = 403 females; Mage = 23.236; SDage = 8.334) filled in a personality questionnaire assessing individual differences in cognitive avoidant and vigilant anxiety processing, ergo, traits describing individual differences in everyday coping styles/modes. Moreover, all participants provided information on individual differences in tendencies toward IUD, the perceived quality of social support received, and the size of their social network (hence a quantity measure). Results: Participants with larger social networks and higher scores in the received social support reported the lowest tendencies toward IUD in our data. A vigilant coping style was positively correlated with tendencies toward IUD, whereas no robust associations could be observed between a cognitive avoidant coping style and tendencies toward IUD. Hierarchical linear regression underlined an important predictive role of the interaction term of vigilance in ego-threat scenarios and perceived quality of social support. Conclusion: The current study not only yields support for the hypothesis that the size of one's own social network as well as the perceived quality of social support received in everyday life present putative resilience factors against developing IUD. It also supports the approach that special coping styles are needed to make use of the social support offered.

Project description:BackgroundAt least 1 billion people are affected by blindness or vision impairment worldwide, and in China, the proportion of myopia among college students is even higher. Anxiety and self-harm are becoming more and more common among college students, which indicates the importance of paying attention to their mental health. Previous studies have demonstrated that vision impairment has a negative impact on the mental health of adults. However, few studies have focused on the effects of myopia on college freshmen's mental health, and the association between the two factors in college students remained elusive.MethodsThis is a large cross-sectional study. A total of 5,519 college freshman would be assessed for the eligibility of the present study, and the inclusion criteria of this study were as follows: (I) first-year college student; (II) diagnosed as myopia and emmetropia through vision test; (III) gave informed consent. Five questionnaires were utilized to collect anxiety data, which include the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI-VFQ-25), the Self Esteem Scale (SES), the Self Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), the Self Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD), for data collection. In addition, a socio-demographic questionnaire was designed and utilized to collect corresponding information. All enrollees were required to complete the all the above questionnaires.ResultsIn total 4,984 college students were enrolled. The proportion of males is 60.43%, and the mean age was 19.8 years old. Both right and left vision had a statistically significant association with NEI-VFQ-25 score (P=0.006, r=0.070; and P=0.021, r=0.060, respectively; Pearson correlation analysis) and SAS score (P=0.003, r=0.075 and P=0.004, r=0.075, respectively; Pearson correlation analysis). However, the correlation coefficient was very low (all less than 0.1). No significant correlation was observed between eye vision and other questionnaire scores.ConclusionsOur data suggested that there is week correlation between myopia and anxiety. However, since this is a single-center study, the observed weak correlation may be caused by selection bias. Therefore, our results still need to be validated in further studies with a larger sample size.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Anxiety conditions are debilitating and prevalent throughout the world. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an effective, acceptance-based behavioral therapy for anxiety. However, there are treatment barriers (eg, financial, geographical, and attitudinal), which prevent people from accessing it. To overcome these barriers, internet-delivered ACT (iACT) interventions have been developed in recent years. These interventions use websites to deliver ACT information and skill training exercises on the Web, either as pure self-help or with therapist guidance. OBJECTIVE:This systematic review aimed to examine the therapeutic impact of iACT on all anxiety conditions. METHODS:The EMBASE, MEDLINE, ProQuest Central, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched up to September 2018. The titles and abstracts of remaining records after deduplication were screened by 2 authors with a total of 36 full-text articles being retained for closer inspection next to eligibility criteria. Empirical studies of all designs, population types, and comparator groups were included if they appraised the impact of iACT treatment on any standardized measure of anxiety. Included studies were appraised on methodological quality and had their data extracted into a standardized coding sheet. Findings were then tabulated, and a narrative synthesis was performed because of the heterogeneity found between studies. RESULTS:A total of 20 studies met inclusion criteria. There were 11 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 9 uncontrolled pilot studies. Participants across all studies were adults. The anxiety conditions treated were as follows: generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder (SAD), illness anxiety disorder (IAD), and general anxiety symptoms, with or without comorbid physical and mental health problems. A total of 18 studies reported significant anxiety reduction after iACT treatment. This was observed in studies that delivered iACT with (n=13) or without (n=5) therapist guidance. The average attrition rate across all included studies during the active iACT treatment phase was 19.19%. In the 13 studies that assessed treatment satisfaction, participants on average rated their iACT experience with above average to high treatment satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS:These findings indicate that iACT can be an efficacious and acceptable treatment for adults with GAD and general anxiety symptoms. More RCT studies are needed to corroborate these early iACT findings using empirical treatments in active control groups (eg, internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy). This would potentially validate the promising results found for SAD and IAD as well as address the full spectrum of anxiety disorders.

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Associations Between Internet Addiction and Gender, Anxiety, Coping Styles and Acceptance in University Freshmen in South China.

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