Abstract

Background: After the Covid – 19 outbreak, school going children have been advised to stay at home due to which children and their parents have had to greatly rely on internet for learning. Due to increased stay indoors, children are being more drawn towards screens to keep themselves occupied. Increased screen- time in children is leading to more problematic internet use. There is little research regarding the study of problematic internet use during COVID -19 in India. Therefore, this study was conducted. Primary objective: To study the problematic internet use among children of age group 6 – 16 years during covid-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: After the permission from the Institutional Ethics Committee, 53 parents of school going children of age group 6 – 16 years in urban population, satisfying the inclusion and exclusion criteria participated in the study. Informed consents were obtained. Each individual was interviewed along with the semi-structured proforma and then administered scale for internet use. (Young’s Internet Addiction test). Results: Information about 53 children was obtained through parents’ interview. Out of 53 children 15 (28.3%) were in age group of 6-10 years, 34 (64.2%) were in age group of 11-15 years, 4 (7.5 %) were above the age of 15 years. The mean age in children was 11.57 ± 2.65 years. In this study, 17 (32%) children showed problematic internet use according to Young’s Internet addiction scale. Conclusions: A significant number of children showed problematic internet use during covid – 19 pandemic.

Keywords

Covid-19, Pandemic, Internet addiction, School children, Psychiatry, Problematic internet use