• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.229-237
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• 2003

Objectives：Among the studies related to excessive computer use, the studies for elementary school students are relatively rare. Because children have relatively poor ability to recognize and express themselves, the carers' information is important to assess the children. This study attempted to investigate the relationship between children's computer use and sociopsychiatric characteristics on the basis of carers' reports. Methods：The subjects of this study were 287 5th- and 6th-grade students in the elementary school in Seoul. The student carers were asked to answer the questions for children's computer use, the computer addiction test modified from Young's parent-child internet addiction test, Korean Personality Inventory for Children(K-PIC). SPSS(version 10) was used to analyse the differnece of computer use between genders and the relation of the computer addiction test with K-PIC. Results：1) The score of computer addiction test was significantly higher in male children than in female children and more male children compared to female children were distributed in the excessive user group. 2) The score of computer addiction test correlated with the scores of most clinical scales of K-PIC and the average scores of most clinical scale were significantly higher in the excessive user group than in the general user group. 3) More children with score above 65 in HPR, DLQ, FAM scale were distributed in excessive user group than in general user group. Conclusion：The 5th- and 6th-grade elementary school students with excessive computer use were found to show more sociopsychiatric problems. With these finding we suggest that social and clinical attention to the children who use computer excessively shoud be required.