Smartphone addiction among medical students in Bisha, Saudi Arabia

Anxiety and depression during post covid-19 lockdown period among medical students, and it's relation with stress and smartphone addiction in India

OBJECTIVES

Medical profession, a competitive and ever-updating field which requires great commitment, imposes a stressful environment for students. Our study aimed to find the prevalence and factors associated with psychological illness.

METHODS

A cross-sectional analytical study was done among medical students in Puducherry. A stratified random sampling strategy was incorporated to achieve a calculated sample size of 384. The presence of anxiety and depression, perceived stress and addiction to the phone were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, and Smartphone Addiction Scale - short version. Prevalence of anxiety and depression was summarized as a proportion with a 95 % confidence interval (CI). The prevalence ratio (PR) for the factors associated was estimated using log-binomial regression.

RESULTS

With the response from 383 students, the prevalence of anxiety and depression was 39.4 % (95 %CI: 34.5-44.3 %) and 26.6 % (22.2-31.1 %). Perceived stress was moderate in 68.2 % and high in 14 % of students. Higher age (aPR=1.49), female gender (aPR=1.22), tobacco or alcohol use (aPR=1.24), smartphone addiction (aPR=2.09) and high stress (aPR=1.93) were the predictors of anxiety among medical students in our study. Use of tobacco or alcohol (aPR=2.07), smartphone addiction (aPR=1.96) and high stress (aPR=1.72) were the predictors of depression.

CONCLUSIONS

Anxiety was more prevalent than depression among the medical students. Use of tobacco or alcohol, smartphone addiction and stress increase the risk of psychological morbidity. Medical training should have a module on coping mechanisms to overcome psychological illness and have better mental well-being.

The Prevalence of Nomophobia and Its Impact on Academic Performance of Medical Undergraduates at the College of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah City, Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND

Nomophobia, or no mobile phone phobia, is a term used to describe psychological conditions when people fear being without a mobile phone.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to measure the prevalence of nomophobia, its associated factors, and its impact on the academic performance of medical undergraduates at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), Makkah City, Saudi Arabia.

METHODS

A descriptive cross-sectional study included a simple random sample of 595 medical undergraduates. The study administered the Nomophobia Questionnaire, which had been validated in previous articles, using an interview-based model. The collected data were reviewed and entered into the IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26 (Released 2019; IBM Corp., Armonk, New York) for analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 595 medical students were included in this study. Most of them (99%, n = 589) had different degrees of nomophobia, while only a small percentage (1%, n = 6) did not exhibit it. The younger medical students (18-19 years old) showed significantly higher percentages of moderate to severe nomophobia in comparison to older students (P = 0.028), while there was no significant relationship between nomophobia and academic performance, despite the fact that 128 (77.1%) of students with severe nomophobia had grade point averages (GPAs) of 3.5-4.0, compared to 244 (69.1%) of students with moderate nomophobia (P = 0.150).

CONCLUSIONS

This study concludes that the prevalence rate of nomophobia is generally high among medical undergraduates at UQU in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia. This disorder was detected more among younger medical undergraduates, with no significant effects on their academic performance. It is mandatory to conduct more studies with larger sample sizes of different university students (medical and non-medical) to identify factors that lead to the development of nomophobia. Qualitative research among groups of university students will add more deep information about this disorder. Health education programs should be designed and targeted at university students, focusing on the harmful health effects of excessive use of mobile phones and measures to prevent this disorder.

Problematic use of the internet, smartphones, and social media among medical students and relationship with depression: An exploratory study

BACKGROUND

Students in sub-Saharan African countries experienced online classes for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic. For some individuals, greater online engagement can lead to online dependency, which can be associated with depression. The present study explored the association between problematic use of the internet, social media, and smartphones with depression symptoms among Ugandan medical students.

METHODS

A pilot study was conducted among 269 medical students at a Ugandan public university. Using a survey, data were collected regarding socio-demographic factors, lifestyle, online use behaviors, smartphone addiction, social media addiction, and internet addiction. Hierarchical linear regression models were performed to explore the associations of different forms of online addiction with depression symptom severity.

RESULTS

The findings indicated that 16.73% of the medical students had moderate to severe depression symptoms. The prevalence of being at risk of (i) smartphone addiction was 45.72%, (ii) social media addiction was 74.34%, and (iii) internet addiction use was 8.55%. Online use behaviors (e.g., average hours spent online, types of social media platforms used, the purpose for internet use) and online-related addictions (to smartphones, social media, and the internet) predicted approximately 8% and 10% of the severity of depression symptoms, respectively. However, over the past two weeks, life stressors had the highest predictability for depression (35.9%). The final model predicted a total of 51.9% variance for depression symptoms. In the final model, romantic relationship problems (ß = 2.30, S.E = 0.58; p<0.01) and academic performance problems (ß = 1.76, S.E = 0.60; p<0.01) over the past two weeks; and increased internet addiction severity (ß = 0.05, S.E = 0.02; p<0.01) was associated with significantly increased depression symptom severity, whereas Twitter use was associated with reduced depression symptom severity (ß = 1.88, S.E = 0.57; p<0.05).

CONCLUSION

Despite life stressors being the largest predictor of depression symptom score severity, problematic online use also contributed significantly. Therefore, it is recommended that medical students' mental health care services consider digital wellbeing and its relationship with problematic online use as part of a more holistic depression prevention and resilience program.

Smartphone Use and Addiction among Pharmacy Students in Northern Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Study

In Thailand and worldwide, smartphone addiction among university students is a growing concern. This study aims to investigate behaviors of smartphone use, the prevalence of smartphone addiction, the duration of smartphone use, and their associated factors among pharmacy students at a university in northern Thailand. This cross-sectional study was conducted using an online self-administered questionnaire to collect data from January to February 2021. Smartphone addiction was measured using the Smartphone Addiction Scale: Thai Short Version (SAS-SV-TH). Of 281 students (70% female, average age of 21.1 (2.0), year 1 to 5), 87% used smartphones and tablets. Their average time spent on a smartphone was 7.5 (±3.1) hours daily on weekdays and 8.1 (±3.1) on weekends. The top three reasons for using smartphones were social networking (92.9%), education (90.3%) and entertainment (89.6%). Health-related problems associated with smartphone use were insomnia (51.3%), anxiety (41.3%), headache (38.8%) and stress (38.4%). The prevalence of smartphone addiction was 49% (95% CI: 44-55%); the associated factor comprised time spent on smartphones (>5 h/day). The prevalence of spending more than five hours daily on smartphones was 75% (95% CI: 70-80%) during weekdays and 81% (95% CI: 77-86%) during weekends; associated factors for during weekdays included a monthly smartphone bill of more than 500 THB (adjusted odds ratio: 4.30 (95% CI: 2.00-9.24) and for senior students (adjusted OR: 3.31 (95% CI: 1.77-6.19). The results remained the same for the weekend. In short, the results show that half of the pharmacy students were addicted to their smartphone; time spent on smartphones (>5 h/day) was associated with addiction. Therefore, university students should be encouraged to adopt healthy habits for smartphone use (such as limiting screen time and maintaining good posture while using a smartphone or tablet) and to increase their awareness of health-related problems.

The Association between Smartphone Addiction and Insomnia Incidence in Students of the Faculty of Medicine Udayana University Batch of 2020 during the Coronavirus Disease-19 Pandemic

BACKGROUND: The use of smartphones is increasing in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic for various purposes, this encourages smartphone addiction. In addition, the incidence of insomnia has also increased in the pandemic era. AIM: This study was conducted to find an association between smartphone addiction and the incidence of insomnia, especially among students of the Faculty of Medicine, Udayana University. METHOD: This research is a descriptive-analytic study with the cross-sectional method, using two main questionnaires, Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version, and Insomnia Severity Index. Questionnaires were distributed using Google forms and then collected and analyzed using software SPSS version 25. RESULT: Overall the total research respondents with the inclusion criteria in this study amounted to 364 people. The results showed that 212 respondents (58.24%) had a high level of smartphone addiction and 152 respondents (41.76%) had a low level of smartphone addiction. In addition, 187 respondents (51.37%) experienced mild insomnia, 87 respondents (23.9%) experienced moderate insomnia, 13 respondents (3.57%) experienced severe insomnia, and 77 respondents (21.15%) did not experience insomnia. Based on the results of data analysis, it was found that smartphone addiction had a significant relationship (p = 0.002) with weak and positive correlation (r = 0.162) to the incidence of insomnia. CONCLUSION: It was found that the majority of respondents experienced high levels of smartphone addiction and mild insomnia. Another finding suggests the higher addiction to the smartphones, the more severe insomnia suffered.