The 2-Year Course of Internet Addiction Among a Japanese Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic Sample with Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Ryuhei So; Kazunori Makino; Tomoya Hirota; Masaki Fujiwara; Kozo Ocho; Shin Ikeda; Shouko Tsubouchi; Masatoshi Inagakip

doi:10.1007/s10803-019-04169-9

The 2-Year Course of Internet Addiction Among a Japanese Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic Sample with Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

J Autism Dev Disord. 2019 Nov;49(11):4515-4522. doi: 10.1007/s10803-019-04169-9.

Authors

Ryuhei So¹, Kazunori Makino², Tomoya Hirota³, Masaki Fujiwara⁴, Kozo Ocho⁵, Shin Ikeda⁵, Shouko Tsubouchi^{6

7}, Masatoshi Inagakip⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Okayama Psychiatric Medical Center, 3-16 Shikatahonmachi, Kita Ward, Okayama, 700-0915, Japan. nexttext@gmail.com.
² Department of Psychiatry, Saitama Prefectural Psychiatric Hospital, Saitama, Japan.
³ Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
⁴ Department of Neuropsychiatry, Okayama University Hospital, Okayama, Japan.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Okayama Psychiatric Medical Center, 3-16 Shikatahonmachi, Kita Ward, Okayama, 700-0915, Japan.
⁶ Okayama Child Counseling Center, Okayama, Japan.
⁷ Okayama Center for Developmental Disorders, Okayama, Japan.
⁸ Department of Psychiatry, Shimane University School of Medicine, Shimane, Japan.

PMID: 31410697
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-019-04169-9

Abstract

Internet addiction (IA) has been reported as prevalent in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the course of IA in this population has not been elucidated. The authors performed a 2-year follow-up study including 89 out of 132 adolescents with ASD and/or ADHD in a psychiatric clinical setting who participated in the original cross-sectional study assessing IA prevalence. Within this sample of participants from both the original and the follow-up study, results showed a 2-year IA remission and incidence rate of 60% and 5%, respectively. Our findings imply that the course of IA in psychiatric populations with ASD and/or ADHD might be similar to reports from previous studies with general adolescent populations.

Keywords: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; Autism spectrum disorder; Health-related quality of life; Internet addiction; Prognosis.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / psychology*
Autism Spectrum Disorder / psychology*
Behavior, Addictive / epidemiology*
Behavior, Addictive / psychology*
Child
Disease Progression
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Incidence
Internet
Japan / epidemiology
Male
Prevalence
Remission Induction
Time Factors