Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: Adolescent age is an important transition phase from childhood into adult. In this transition, they experience changes in physical and mental. This makes adolescents easily feel anxious. Majority of adolescents spend hours surfing the internet to relieve their anxiety. This might slowly become addiction and as they spend more hours in virtual life, more negative effects happen in real life. This vicious cycle of internet addiction continues and ruins the adolescent’s future. Therefore, it is very important to determine the relationship between anxiety and internet addiction among Indonesian adolescents. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: A cross-sectional study was done in junior high schools from grade 1 until 3 on February 2018. Students aged 13 until 15 were asked to complete Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A). Baseline characteristics were presented using descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation analysis was used to determine correlation between anxiety and internet addiction. Findings: A total of 88 students participated in this study and most were female (58.43%). The median of age was 14 (13-15) years old. From 70 students that had mild anxiety, 41 students (58.6%) didn’t have addiction, 27 students (38.6%) had mild addiction and 2 students (2.8%) had severe addiction. Moreover, from 12 students that had moderate anxiety, 3 students (25%) didn’t have addiction and 9 students (75%) had mild addiction. In addition, from 6 students that had severe anxiety, 4 students (66.7%) had mild addiction and 2 students (33.3%) had severe addiction. Anxiety and internet addiction was significantly correlated (p<0.001) with moderate strength (r=0.431). Conclusion & Significance: There was a moderate relation between anxiety and internet addiction among adolescents aged 13 until 15 in Indonesia.

Biography

E-mail: engelberta.pardamean@yahoo.com