Facebook addiction and its related factors among medical students; a cross- sectional study in Bangladesh

Md Rizwanul Karim; Md Jawadul Haque; Shahnaz Akhter; Helal Uddin Ahmed

doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0001597

Facebook addiction and its related factors among medical students; a cross- sectional study in Bangladesh

PLOS Glob Public Health. 2023 Feb 22;3(2):e0001597. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001597. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Md Rizwanul Karim¹, Md Jawadul Haque², Shahnaz Akhter³, Helal Uddin Ahmed⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Community Medicine, Patuakhali Medical College (PKMC), Patuakhali, Bangladesh.
² Department of Community Medicine, Rajshahi Medical College, Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
³ Department of Gynae and Obstetrics, Combined Military Hospital, Jalalabad, Sylhet Cantonment, Sylhet, Bangladesh.
⁴ Department of Child Adolescent & Family Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Shyamoli, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Abstract

There is mounting evidence that Facebook Addiction is associated with poor mental health, physical symptoms, social dysfunction, and despair among the adolescent and youth population. The current study set out to identify the prevalence of Facebook Addiction among Bangladeshi medical students as well as its influencing factors. This cross-sectional survey was conducted on 720 randomly selected medical students from eight public medical colleges from January to June 2022. Data were obtained using a semi- structured, self-reported questionnaire and analyzed using the SPSS v.23 programs. The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale BFAS was used to assess Facebook Addiction, while the Generalized Anxiety Disorder GAD-7, Patient Health Questionnaire PHQ-9, Perceived Stress Scale PSS10, Chen Internet Addiction Scale CIAS, and Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index PSQI was used to assess anxiety, depression, perceived stress, internet addiction, and sleep quality. Binary logistic regression was used to evaluate the influence of several demographic, psychological, and behavioral characteristics on the likelihood of respondents being addicted to Facebook. Facebook Addiction was observed in 29.4% of medical students. According to data, 63.7% of medical students reported mild to severe anxiety, 29.3% moderate to severe depression, and 84.9% moderate to high perceived stress. Lack of personal income [OR with (95% CI), 1.82 (1.13, 2.96)], poor academic performance [2.46 (1.45, 4.15)], moderate anxiety [2.45 (1.22, 4.92)], moderate perceived stress [5.87 (1.92, 17.95)], and moderately severe depression [2.62 (.97, 7.08)] were all found to play a significant role in the development of Facebook Addiction. However, living with parents [OR with (95% CI), .37 (.14, .95)] and positive family relationships [.40 (.18, .87)] reduces the likelihood of becoming addicted to Facebook. An integrated participative Behavioral and psychological intervention should be devised to reduce the risks of Facebook addiction in medical students while also improving their mental health-related quality of life.

Copyright: © 2023 Karim et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Grants and funding

This research project was funded by Bangladesh Medical Research Council BMRC (BMRC/HPNSP-Research 2021 -2022; I 471). The sponsor helped by paying the authors honoraria, printing the questionnaire, and purchasing stationery, but they had no further involvement in the study's planning, data collecting, analysis, publication decision, or manuscript preparation.