Our knowledge about the effect of internet use on patients with psychotic disorder has not been fully investigated.

The main objective was to investigate the psychological characteristics associated with Internet use in chronically mentally ill, compared to the general population.

To explore the levelsof internet use in patients with psychosis and their association with self-esteemand interpersonal relationships.

The study involved 101 participants of which 30 were psychotic outpatients (meanage 39 years, SD = 11) and 71 (mean age 34 years, SD = 8) from the generalpopulation. Participants filled out a questionnaire of a) social-demographicand clinical parameters b) Diagnostic criteria Young’s Internet addiction, c) Internet Addiction Test (IAT) questionnaire for the diagnosis of Internet addiction, d) The Scale in Interpersonal Relationships (ECRI) and e) The Greek version of Self-esteem Questionnaire (SES, Self-Esteem Scale).

We found significant statistical differences in terms of internetaddiction (Young’s diagnostic criteria: 5/25 vs 6/65, p<.00001 and IAT: 7/23 vs 8/63, p<.00001) when we compared patients with psychotic disorder with general population. Especially, for psychotic patients logistic regression models found that self-esteem, avoidance and anxiety adulthood relationships statistically contributed to internet addiction, after adjustments(p=043, p=.015 and p=.021, respectively).

Our results found that a psychotic patient with difficulty ininterpersonal relationships and with low self-esteem is more likely to adopt an addictive behavior in the use of internet in comparison to the general population.