Academic Use of Smart Phone and Correlation of its Addiction with Sleep Disturbances among Medical Students

Abstract

Abstract: Objective: To assess the positive academic usage of smart phone to determine the correlation of its potential addiction with sleeping disturbances among medical students in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: A standard scale based questionnaire was constructed and reviewed by a panel of expert for content reliability and validity. The questionnaire consisted of 3 parts: Part “A” for demographic parameters, Part “B” was designed to evaluate Smart phone addiction and Part “C” for assessment of sleep disturbance. The study was conducted in July 2017 which comprised of medical students of the Liaquat National Hospital & Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan.ts: A total of 212 students participated in which Males were 31.1% (n=66), Females were 68.9% (n=146). Out of 212, within which 93.3% (n=198) had Smart Phones, 4.71% (n=10) had Mobile phones other than smart phones and 1.88 %( n=4) did not had mobile phone. Majority of students were found to be using Smart phone for academically beneficial use 86.4 %( n=171). Among 198 smart phone users 51.5% (n=102) were found to be addicted with respect to our scale. A positive significant correlation was found between the scores obtained from the Modified Smart phone addiction scale and Sleep disturbance Scale (rs=0.536; p<0.001). Conclusion: Despite many beneficial uses of Smart phone in the modern era, students are developing smart-phone addiction which may result in sleep deprivation.