ArticleAnnals of general psychiatry2022
Problematic Internet Use, health behaviors, depression and eating disorders: a cross-sectional study among Polish medical school students.
Article in Annals of general psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association of Internet addiction with psychiatric symptom levels and sleep disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Associations Between Concentrations of Vitamin D3, Vitamin B12, and Folate and the Well-Being of Medical Students.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Risk factors for Problematic Internet Use (PIU) among Polish students: the role of loneliness, depression, and health behaviours in a predictive analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Night running and internet addiction among university students: a serial mediation model of stress/anxiety and rumination.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Internet addiction as a predictor of emotional eating in young adults: the incremental role of psychological variables.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Associations between appetite loss and psychopathology as well as gender differences in adolescents with major depressive disorders.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Associations Between Problematic QQ Use and Mental Health Among Chinese Children and Adolescents: A Latent Class Analysis.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Emerging Interventions in Behavioral Addictions: A Narrative Review of Psychedelics and Neuromodulation.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- The impact of loneliness on depression among college students: the mediating role of problematic internet use and the moderating role of perceived social support.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Q-single: Linking functional impairment to problematic internet use through a single-question approach.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Article
- Associations between social media addiction, social media fatigue, fear of missing out, and sleep quality among university students in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- The Moderated Mediating Effects of Social Media Identity and Loneliness on the Relationship Between Problematic Internet Use and Mental Health in China: Nationwide Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- People with symptoms of depression and those at significant risk of suicide show differences in their personality profile and sense of meaning in life.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Association of Problematic Internet Use With Psychotic Experiences and Depression in Adolescents: A Cohort Study.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2024Article
- Article
- Lifestyle Habits Related to Internet Use in Adolescents: Relationships between Wellness, Happiness, and Mental Health.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Problematic Internet use and attitudes towards persons with disabilities - cross-sectional research among Polish students.BMC medical education · 2023Article
- Internet Addiction and Physical Activity among Polish and Portuguese Students in the Final Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Determinants of the Impact of Fatigue on the Health of Polish Nursing Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundProblematic Internet Use is defined as a use of the Internet which leads to various difficulties. The aim of this study was to check whether Problematic Internet Use is associated with health risks, such as: anti-health behaviors, depressive symptoms, abnormal body weight or eating disorders.
methodsThis cross-sectional study included 540 medical school students of Polish descent (83.5% females; 16.5% males), whose mean age was 22.49 years (SD = 5.20). The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire set, including the Problematic Internet Use Test, Juczyński's Health-Related Behavior Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Eating Attitudes Test and a self-designed demographic survey.
resultsIncreased Problematic Internet Use scores were observed in male, full-time students, persons who use the Internet on the computer (compared to those who mostly use it on the phone), and those who go online mainly for entertainment purposes (compared to those who indicated another main purpose of using the Internet). 47.6% of the sample reported poor health behaviors, while 27.1% met the criteria of a depressive episode and 6.9% of an eating disorder. High risk of Problematic Internet Use was observed in 2.8% of the sample, particularly those who reported having more free time during the day, engaged in fewer health protective behaviors, manifested more severe depressive symptoms and scored higher on the Eating Attitudes Test.
conclusionSuch results indicate that students with Problematic Internet Use lead an unhealthy lifestyle and more often show symptoms of depression and eating disorders than students without Problematic Internet Use.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.