Abstract
Objectives
Social media facilitate the interaction between individuals without regard to the distances between the users. Everybody who has access to internet can suffer from social media addiction. During COVID-19 pandemic there was an increase in social media usage among all population types and especially the university students, which would negatively affect their mental health. Therefore, this study aims at assessing social media addiction and depression among pharmacy students by using questionnaires specifically designed for this purpose.
Methods
A cross-sectional study with convenience sampling was conducted from the start of November to the end of December 2021 among undergraduate pharmacy students in Mosul city, Iraq. An online questionnaire was adopted; it consisted of three parts, the first was for collecting socio-demographic and social media usage information, Social Media Addiction Questionnaire (SMAQ) was used in the second part to assess social media addiction of the participants, and the third part was comprised of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to assess depression among students.
Results
Six hundred-three students completed the questionnaire and constituted the final study sample. Instagram was the most used social media program among the students. About 38 % of the students were at risk of becoming addicted on social media, with only 8.4 % of them being minimally or not depressed. Additionally, positive significant correlation was observed between social media addiction and depression. Using social media for more than 4 h and poor academic performance were found to be predictors for social media addiction and depression.
Conclusions
Addiction to social media and depression are prevalent among pharmacy students in Iraq and the two are related to each other.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to all participants in this study who helped to complete this work. An appreciation is afforded to the University of Mosul/College of Pharmacy for their unrestricted support for its researchers.
Special thanks and gratitude for pharmacists Shaymaa, Qater Al-nada, Dalal, Wasan, and Modur for their tremendous efforts in collecting data, I am very proud to know such enthusiastic group of aspiring young pharmacists.
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Research ethics: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.
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Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.
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Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.
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