the prevalence of internet addiction and its associated factors among iranian adults

Objectives: the internet is known as an essential part of individuals rsquo; daily life. the present descriptive research aimed to determine the prevalence rate of internet addiction (ia) and its related factors in iran.methods: in total, 1046 internet users were recruited by a convenience sampling approach. the required data were collected by an online questionnaire, including a sociodemographic data scale and the persian version of the internet addiction test. the obtained data were analyzed using spss. results: the current study findings indicated that the prevalence rate of ia was equal to 57.6%.the highest prevalence rate belonged to the research participants aged le;35 years (67.5%), followed by females (61.5%), married subjects (66.7%), the holders of msc and phd. degrees (65.8%), and those employed in public sectors (68.5%). the highest prevalence of ia was detected among the study participants who spent one hour daily on the internet (94.7%); however, the lowest prevalence of the ia was observed among those who spent >10 hours daily on the internet (16.4%). moreover, there was no dramatic difference between the internet access source and the ia among the research participants (p˃0.05). there was a significant relationship between all determined variables and the level of ia (p˂0.05). discussion: the prevalence of ia was increasing in the studied population. health educators are recommended to emphasize improving society rsquo;s awareness of ia. they are also suggested to develop educational preventive measures on increasing media health literacy approaches.