Utilizing internet for health and education a descriptive study

Introduction: Internet plays a very important role in the present scenario as many access the same for understanding new information. General usage and information access may depend on the availability and exposure of the individual. So this study aims to determine their Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Internet Usage for Health and Education.
Methodology: A 24 items, multiple choices, both closed ended and open ended questionnaire was used. It contained questions on awareness, attitude, application and the future of Internet technology. All the post graduate students from 2 dental colleges were included after obtaining their consent and also ethical clearance was obtained from the ethics committee. Significance for statistical tests was predetermined at probability value of 0.05 or less.
Results: A total of 270 subjects participated in the study. An overall 99.3% of the subjects were aware of Internet. A majority of 33.6% preferred Public terminals and 54.9% used weekly; A majority of 42.9% felt that “sometimes” they serve as 1st source of information; A majority of 57.1% use internet to download extra notes to supplement the existing notes; A majority of 71.3% said it is friendly “to an extent”; A majority of (54.5%) said it’s reliable; A majority of (37%) said that it would result in combination problems like postural/musculo-skeletal/social/vision problems and a majority said yes (61.2% ) to Edu-Sat as the future tool for enhancing professional knowledge globally.
Conclusion: It is concluded that Internet should act as means of supplement rather than replace traditional methods of learning in dental health care information.