Objective:

To determine the association between Internet addiction (IA) and academic performance in dental students at the University of Cartagena.

Material and methods:

A cross-sectional study was conducted in 402 students included through non-probabilistic sampling who answered an anonymous and self-reporting questionnaire that included socio-demographic variables, academic performance (last semester overall grade), presence of IA (Young's Test) and covariates related to IA based on academic performance. Data were analysed by means of proportions, relationships between variables with the X 2 test and strength of association was estimated with odds ratios (OR) using nominal logistic regression.

Results:

Approximately 24.63% of the students used the Internet much less than the average population, but 75.3% had IA; 73.13% of cases were considered mild and 2.24% moderate. There were no severe cases. Around 5.2% had poor academic performance. In multivariate analysis, the model that best explained IA in relation to academic performance was: studying in lower-level courses (OR=0.54; 95% CI, 0.32-0.91); studying in a different places of the house (OR=3.38; 95% CI, 1.71-6.68); not using laptop for studying (OR=0.41; 95% CI, 0.19-0.89), chatting on mobile phone (OR=2.43; 95% CI, 1.45-3.06); and spending more than 18 minutes on mobile phone while studying (OR=3.20; 95% CI, 1.71-5.99).

Conclusions:

Academic performance was not associated with AI. However, studying in lower-level courses, in a different place of the house, not using laptop to study, and spending more than 18 minutes answering their mobile phone and chatting on mobile phone while studying were covariates statistically associated with IA.

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