When adolescents face both Internet addiction and mood symptoms: A cross-sectional study of comorbidity and its predictors

Abstract

Highlights The prevalence of IA alone, mood symptoms alone and their comorbidity in high school students was 7.0%, 27.0%, 13.6%, respectively. Adolescents exposed to more associated factors would have high risk of IA, mood symptoms and their comorbidity. IA frequently co-occurred with mood symptoms among adolescents. To identify and intervene the co-occurrence of IA and mood symptoms is necessary.

The Six-Item Version of the Internet Addiction Test: Its Development, Psychometric Properties, and Measurement Invariance among Women with Eating Disorders and Healthy School and University Students

“…Invariance of the IAT across gender groups may not hold among ED patient population. This is because EDs are more frequent and more comorbid among women [ 92 ] who also express higher psychological distress and IA than men [ 23 , 93 ] while research confirms differences in brain activity between men and women with internet gaming disorder [ 94 ]. Additionally, subtypes of EDs (e.g., bulimia nervosa, binge eating, etc.)…”

“…IA prevalence among university students is also high, albeit a bit lower than that noticed in school children: 6.4% of first-year Chinese university students and 12.3% of Taiwanese university students (reviewed in [ 21 ]). Among adolescents, the literature confirms positive association of IA with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ 22 ], mood disorders [ 23 ], social anxiety [ 21 , 24 ], hostility, and multiple addictions (e.g., smoking, binge drinking, and illicit drugs) [ 21 , 23 , 24 ]. Despite its widespread and serious adverse effects, IA may not be detected by health professionals due to lack of training [ 25 ].…”

“…In addition, the IAT is largely validated among adolescents, university students, and healthy young adults [ 25 , 41 , 43 ]. IA is high among individuals with comorbidities [ 23 , 24 ]. Therefore, the diagnostic potential of the IAT needs to be explored in diverse groups, including diseased conditions [ 25 ].…”

The Mediating Roles of Emotional Regulation on Negative Emotion and Internet Addiction Among Chinese Adolescents From a Development Perspective

“…Although the related research supports the fact that negative emotion, such as depression and anxiety, play important roles in the severity of internet addiction, gender also plays an important role in the structural equation model (30). In addition, compared with boys, girls were found to be at a higher risk of mood symptoms only and of comorbid IA and mood symptoms (13). However, few studies have referred to the invariance of the structural model relating negative emotion and internet addiction, and some research shows that the path relating emotion and internet addiction shows no difference, which assumed negative emotion as mediator between school climate problematic internet use and ignore the comparison of progressive equivalence models (31).…”

“…Owing to factors that pertain to academic performance (10), interpersonal problems (11), and family (12), many adolescents suffered from emotion problems, especially negative emotion of depression and anxiety (13). Many studies have considered that depression and anxiety may be the main risk factors for internet addiction among adolescents (14,15).…”