Design
A cross-sectional descriptive study was designed to
examine the independent factors associated with the
severity of Internet addiction and its relationship
between psychiatric symptoms and severity of Internet
addiction.
Subjects and Data Collection
A total of 912 students of 980 possible students in
7th-12th grades were recruited from 2 junior high
schools and 2 academic senior high schools located in
Seoul, South Korea. The target schools were convenience
sample. Two schools, 1 junior high school and
1 senior high school, were girl’s schools; 1 junior high
school and 1 senior high school were co-ed schools.
Previous studies have mostly studied male Internet
users. This study had a predominance of female Internet
users because they have recently increased their
Internet use.18