Zeitschrift für Suchtforschung und -therapie

Abstrakt

Problematic Internet use in Older Adults, A Critical Review of the Literature

Khaled M’hiri, Alessandra Costanza, Yasser Khazaal, Riaz Khan, Daniele Zullino and Sophia Achab

Lately, the use of Internet has become increasingly common and is source of benefits in terms of information, communication and health applications. Its use is, sometimes, problematic with psychiatric and physical negative consequences. Growing literature provides data on adolescents and adults. Entry into advanced age and characteristics involve interaction with Internet, different from that of the adult or young adult.
This paper aimed to review literature on problematic Internet use in elder persons. Literature search on Medline database has shown no study on problematic Internet use targeting subjects aged over 60 years old. Only 3 studies including subjects entering into elder age (over 55 years old) have been found. They showed Problematic Internet use (PIU) being present in this subgroup population but no further data were presented specifically for this age group.
Why problematic Internet use in elderly should be a concern for the medical community at a neurological, social, somatic and psychiatric level is discussed in the present article.
Further research is needed to screen for problematic use of Internet in this population and to characterize it. The expected outcome of this research to be developed is to design specific therapeutic and preventive strategies