Problematic internet use and bipolar disorder symptoms in male adolescents

  • Prof Hee Jeong Yoo, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea
  • Dr Seong Min Kim, Seongnam Child and Adolescent Community Mental Health Center, Korea
  • Prof Tae Hyun Ha, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea
  • Dr Jae Seung Chang, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea
  • Prof Jeong Hyun Kim, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea
  • Dr Je Wook Kang, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea
  • Dr Eun Soo Moon, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea
  • Prof Kyoo Seob Ha, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Korea

The objective of this study is to evaluate the symptoms of bipolar disorder and problematic internet use in adolescents. Two hundred sixty five middle school first grader boys (mean age 12.78±0.42 years) are recruited from the survey performed by Seongnam Child and Adolescent Community Mental Health Center, Seongnam city, Kyeonggi Province, Korea. The severity of problematic internet use was assessed by K-Scale, abbreviated community version, developed and standardized by Korean National Information Society Agency (2008) and bipolar symptoms are screened by Korean version of Child Bipolar Questionnaire (CBQ, Cheon et al., 2008). Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used for analysis of correlations between bipolar disorder symptoms and severity of problematic internet use. As a result, total 27 (10.2%) subjects have problems in internet use in more than one category regarding internet use, i.e., “Disturbances of Adaptive Functioning”, “Addictive Automatic Thought”, and “Deviate Behavior”. The severity of problematic internet use is positively correlated with symptoms score of Broad Phenotype, Core Phenotype, and DSM-IV Bipolar Disorder (p<.05). The DSM-IV Bipolar Disorder is positively correlated with all 3 factors of K-Scale, (p<.05). Problem users group (n=27) revealed significantly higher score in DSM-IV Bipolar Disorder symptoms score than healthy group (1.15±1.46 vs. 0.58±1.14, p=.01). These results suggest that severity of problematic internet use in young male adolescents might be related to bipolar-related symptoms although they are not met for diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder.