Table 3.

Subgroup analyses of internet addiction in Africa

Subgroups	Categories (number of reports)	Sample size	Events	Proportion (%)	[95% confidence interval] (%)	I 2 in % (for heterogeneity)	χ 2 (P) across subgroups
Gender	Male (17)	5,108	2,203	44.0	[35.5; 52.7]	97.4	1.09 (0.296)
	Female (17)	5,899	2,455	37.0	[27.4; 47.1]	98.4
African regions	Northern Africa (16)	8,110	3,929	44.6	[32.9; 56.7]	99.2	4.10 (0.04)
	Sub-Saharan Africa (7)	5,765	1,983	31.0	[25.2; 37.1]	95.7
Assessment tool	Compulsive internet use scale (1)	510	268	52.5	[48.2; 56.9]	Not applicable	53.1 (<0.0001)
	Daily duration of internet use (1)	510	337	66.1	[61.9; 70.1]	Not applicable
	Young's 20−items Internet Addiction Test (17)	11,585	4,981	41.3	[31.7; 51.2]	99.1
	Young's 8−items Questionnaire (4)	1,270	326	27.1	[16.5; 39.2]	94.9
Age related subgroups	Adolescents (2)	858	227	30.7	[10.0; 56.7]	98.1	2.95 (0.4)
	Adolescents and adults (13)	7,226	3,229	42.8	[32.3; 53.6]	98.8
	Adults excluding the elderly (7)	4,130	1,892	39.5	[21.5; 59.2]	99.4
	Adults including the elderly (1)	1,661	564	34.0	[31.7; 36.3]	Not applicable
Occupations	Secondary schools' students (4)	1,875	532	32.2	[12.7; 55.7]	99.1	0.95 (0.62)
	University students (18)	11,747	5,269	42.0	[33.1; 51.1]	99
	Unspecified (1)	253	111	43.9	[37.8; 50.0]	Not applicable