Past Issues

Background: Growing evidence in the literature has indicated the links between pathological Internet use (PIU) and some psychopathology, e.g., attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), suicidality, or other substance uses in community. This study was intended to reconfirm the same finding in military population in terms of military suicide prevention. Methods: Totally 1,220 new soldiers participated and completed copies of self-report questionnaire including demographic data, the Adult Self-Report Scale Inventory-4-Chinese version (ASRI-4), and Chinese version Young Diagnostic Questionnaire (YDQ) for PIU. Results: According to Bread and Wolf’s criteria of PIU for YDQ, about 7.5% of our samples were PIU (the PIU group) and showed no significant difference in age and education levels from the rests (the control group). Comparing with control group, IPU group showed significantly displayed higher mean scores of BSRS-5, ADHD symptoms and significantly higher risk of past ADHD history, suicide ideation (all p < 0.001) and uses of hypnotics and betel nut (both p < 0.05). After controlling mutual influences between those variables, only two of them, namely, suicide ideation, past history of ADHD, remained significantly different (both p < 0.001). Conclusion: In line with existing literature, this study reconfirmed the strong association between PIU and ADHD as well as suicide ideation. Only the associations between PIU and hypnotics and betel nut were found, and these association were affected by ADHD and suicide ideation among our military samples. Our findings reconfirm the links between PIU and ADHD and/or suicide ideation among new soldiers and provide insight of possible mediation mechanism between PIU and hypnotics use.