Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing

K. Prasad ¹, Ameer Hamza ¹, Basavaraj Shrinivasa ¹, Manoj Kumar Sharma ², Sadananda Reddy ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Psychiatric Social Work, NIMHANS, Bengaluru, IN
2 Department of Clinical Psychology, NIMHANS, Bengaluru, IN

Abstract

Internet has become part of our lives and there has been a manifold increase in internet users over the years in India and globally. It has made our life easy and comfortable through providing better opportunities for communication, information and social interaction. However, excessive usage of the internet has led to many negative consequences on human life. Despite excessive internet use has led to the emergence of the concept of internet addiction, the conceptual clarity is still missing to understand the underlying mechanism. Due to this lack of the conceptual clarity, there has not been a formal consensus on diagnostic criteria for Internet Addiction which has hindered the development of proper assessment tools and epidemiological research on the topic and the concept of Internet addiction as a distinct psychiatric disorder is still in its infancy. But most of the studies conducted previously in the field of internet addiction looked into the risk factors for developing or associated with internet addiction rather than conceptualizing the underlying phenomenon of problematic internet use and testing out the same with further research. This leaves the question about calling the internet addiction as a separate disorder or considering it as a comorbid condition for other psychiatric condition unanswered. So the focus of the current review is to understand the conceptual issues pertaining to problematic internet use through the available literature and to draw the attention of readers on the existing theories explaining the etiology of the problematic internet use and to provide future direction for research in this important and yet controversial area.

Keywords

Problematic Internet Use, Psychiatric Disorder, Youth.

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Basavaraj Shrinivasa ¹, Ameer Hamza ¹, Shyam Sundar Arumugham ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Psychiatric Social Work, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, IN
2 Department ofPsychiatry, National Institute ofMental Health and Neurosciences, (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, IN

Abstract

Mental illness in one of the members takes a heavy toll on the family. Symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) not only affect the individual, but also impact the individual's environment. Family members are easily drawn into compulsive rituals or avoidance behaviors in order to prevent or reduce the distress related to the illness. Such behaviors of family members may serve the same function as compulsions which are contradictory to the principles of exposure-based interventions used in the treatment of OCD. Given this bidirectional relationship between family reactions and symptomatology in the affected person, family context plays an important role in the maintenance and treatment of OCD. Thus, it is imperative to understand the role family variables that can have an effect on the course/outcome of illness, which might also help in management of this complex psychosocial condition. In this review, we briefly discuss the impact of OCD on family and how family members contribute to the maintenance of the symptoms of illness with their responses. The possible ways of engaging the family members in the treatment to address relevant family variables are also discussed.

Keywords

OCD, Family Variables, Treatment, Outcome.

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