Construction and Evaluation of a Self-Management Training Program for Internet Addiction in School-Aged Children

Internet addiction has become more serious and affected younger people. It not only influences psycho-social development of school-aged children, but also affects their learning attention, impulsive control, and anxiety. How to improve the internet addiction in school-aged children is an important issue, but the research on the intervention to internet addiction has been limited. Therefore, the aims of this 3-year grant proposal are: (1) to investigate the prevalence of internet addiction, and to analyze the correlation of internet addiction with attention, impulsive control, and anxiety; (2) to construct a self-management training program on internet addiction in school-aged children; (3) to evaluate the effects of self-management training program on internet addiction in school-aged children.Three sections will be conducted to complete this study. The first section is a correlation study which uses Stratified Random Cluster Sampling and targets on grade 5-6 children in elementary school in Taipei. 2000 cases will be collected for the evaluation of prevalence and correlation between internet addiction and learning attention, impulsive control, and anxiety. The first part of second section is to construct an intervention program based on Kanfer’s theory of self-management which includes self-evaluation, target-setting, contract, positive thinking, award and punishment, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement, and Delphi technique for the efficiency and confidence. The second part of the second section and the third section will be an experimental study. Children with internet addiction will be recruited and the intervention will be applied. 170 cases will be tested. Study subjects will be randomly assigned to study or control groups. Study group will take self-management training program intervention. The frequency for 60-minute intervention will be taken once per week and last for 12 weeks. Children in the control group keep their usual care. Data collection will be done before, and after the intervention (1 month, 3 month, and 6 months). Outcome measures will include time spent on internet use, internet addiction scale, learning attention, impulsive control, and anxiety. Descriptive analysis will be used for comparison between basic characteristics and scale scores. Pearson’s correlation is used for the first year to test the correlation of internet addiction between attention, impulsive control, and anxiety. Delphi technique will be adopted for the 2nd and third year for efficiency and confidence. Generalized estimating equation analysis will be conducted to estimate the effects of self-management training program on internet addiction, attention, impulsive control, and anxiety. The findings will help understanding the influence of internet addiction on school-aged children, but also provide empirical evidence for health care providers to improve children’s internet addiction and their psychological health in the future.