Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Jun 10, 2019; 9(3): 55-64
Published online Jun 10, 2019. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v9.i3.55
Problematic Internet use in drug addicts under treatment in public rehab centers
Stefano Baroni, Donatella Marazziti, Federico Mucci, Elisa Diadema, Liliana Dell’Osso
Stefano Baroni, Donatella Marazziti, Federico Mucci, Elisa Diadema, Liliana Dell’Osso, Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Section of Psychiatry, University of Pisa, Pisa 56100, Italy
Author contributions: Baroni S and Marazziti D planned and organized the implementation of the study, contributed to the creation of the interactive platform on external server, carried out statistical analyses, and wrote the manuscript; Dell’Osso L planned and organized and supervised the implementation of the study and wrote the manuscript; Mucci F and Diadema E contributed to the implementation of the study, checked the arriving questionnaires, organized the data for statistical analyses, and wrote the manuscript; All authors approved the final form of the manuscript.
Supported by A grant from “ Regione Calabria” , Italy.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Pisa University.
Informed consent statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Pisa University, and the participants decided to take part in it on a voluntary basis and in an anonymous way, so that it was not possible to identify them.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Donatella Marazziti, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Section of Psychiatry, University of Pisa, Via Roma 67, Pisa 56100, Italy. dmarazzi@psico.med.unipi.it
Telephone: +39-50-2219768 Fax: +39-50-2219787
Received: April 26, 2018
Peer-review started: April 26, 2018
First decision: June 15, 2018
Revised: January 30, 2019
Accepted: May 15, 2019
Article in press: May 15, 2019
Published online: June 10, 2019
Processing time: 131 Days and 8.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This study investigated the characteristics of Internet use and problematic Internet use (PIU) in drug addicts through a specific questionnaire. The findings indicated that PIU is more common in subjects taking cocaine and cannabis than in subjects taking opioids or alcohol, and that the also affected by pathological gambling disorder. This suggests a favoring role of stimulant drugs towards the development of behavioral addictions. The relationship between time spent online and body mass index indicates that Internet use might be a factor that promotes weight gain and obesity. Addiction prevention should take into consideration PIU, which currently represents a worldwide epidemic.