Abstract

Introduction: Self-rated health is a brief measure for general health. It is a comprehensive and sensitive index for prediction of health in future. Due to the high internet usage in medical students, the current study designed to evaluate the self-rated health (SR H) in relationship with internet addiction risk factors in medical students. Methods: This cross sectional study conducted on 254 students of Qom University of Medical Sciences 2014. Participants selected by two stage sampling method including stratified and simple random sampling. The Young�s questionnaire of internet addiction and SR H question used for data collection. Chisquare, t-test, and logistic regression used in data analysis. Results: More than 79.9 of students reported their general health good and very good. The student�s mean score of general health was higher than the average. In addition, the prevalence of internet addiction was 28.7. An inverse significant correlation observed between SR H and internet addiction score (r=-0.198, p=0.002). Using internet for Entertainment, using private Email and chat rooms were the most important predictors of affecting to internet addiction. Moreover, internet addiction is the most predictors of SR H and increased the odds of bad SR H. Conclusion: The good SR H of medical students was higher than general population but in health faculty� students were lower than others. Due to the effect of internet addiction on SRH and increasing trend of internet use in medical students, as well as low age of participants, attention to psychological aspects and the job expectancy in future, can effective on increasing the good SRH. © 2016 Abolfazl Mohammadbeigi et al.