The association between Internet addiction and dissociation among Turkish college students.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate Internet use patterns and Internet addiction among young adult university students and to examine the correlation between excessive Internet use and dissociative symptoms. METHODS: The study was conducted among 1034 students, aged between 18 and 27 years. Internet Addiction Scale, Dissociative Experiences Scale, and a sociodemographic query form were used in the collection of data. Pearson correlation analysis, the t test, and χ(2) test were used for data analysis. RESULTS: According to the Internet Addiction Scale, 9.7% of the study sample was addicted to the Internet. The Pearson correlation analysis results revealed a significant positive correlation between dissociative experiences and Internet addiction (r = 0.220; P < .001) and weekly Internet use (r = 0.227; P < .001). Levels of Internet addiction were significantly higher among male students than female students (P < .001). The Internet use pattern also differed significantly between sexes. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results of this study, Internet addiction is a relatively frequent phenomenon among young adult college students in Turkey. Excessive Internet use is associated with higher levels of dissociative symptoms.

Paradoxical therapy in conversion reaction.

Paradoxical therapy consists of suggesting that the patient intentionally engages in the unwanted behaviour such as performing compulsive ritual or wanting a conversion attack. In this study, the subjects were selected by the emergency unit psychiatrist from patients who were admitted to the emergency unit with pseudoseizure. The diagnoses was based on DSM-IV criteria. Paradoxical intention was applied to half of the 30 patients with conversion disorders; the other half were treated with diazepam in order to examine the efficiency of the paradoxical intention versus diazepam. In both groups the differences of the anxiety scores at the beginning of the study were found to be insignificant (z=1.08, p=0.28). Of the 15 patients who completed paradoxical intention treatment, 14 (93.3%) responded favorably to paradoxical intention. On the other hand of 15 patients who completed diazepam therapy, 9 (60%) responded well to therapy and 6 patients carried on their conversion symptoms at the end of 6 weeks. Paradoxical intention-treated patients appeared to have greater improvements in anxiety scores (z=2.43, p<0.015) and conversion symptoms (t=2.27, p=0.034) than the diazepam-treated patients. The results of the present study are encouraging in that paradoxical intention can be effective in the treatment of conversion disorder.