Subjective well-being and vulnerability related to problematic Internet use among university students with and without disabilities: A comparative study

Abstract

This study aims to observe whether people with disabilitiesexperience problematic Internet use (PIU) like that of youngpeople without disabilities; to relate PIU to psychological dis-tress in young disabled people and to determine whether theseproblems are similar to or different from those experienced byyoung people without disabilities. The sample comprised 408university students with disabilities and 1386 university stu-dents without disabilities from several Spanish universities. PIUwas evaluated using theInternet Addiction Test(IAT) and psy-chological distress was evaluated using theClinical Outcomes inRoutine Evaluation‐Outcome Measure(CORE‐OM). The groupof university students with disabilities showed less PIU thanthe nondisabled students, but the worst scores in variablesreferencing psychological discomfort were found among thosestudents with disabilities who also had PIU. Although the re-sults are not completely generalizable, PIU is related to biggerproblems in disabled people for whom it represents a higherrisk than for people without disabilities.