Association between smartphone addiction and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic 2021 among inner Mongolia medical university students, the people's republic of China

Abstract

Smartphone is currently playing a crucial role; consequently, many smartphone users have become addicted and eventually resulted in psychological problems. This study intends to assess an association between smartphone addition and mental health among students of Inner Mongolia Medical University. The researcher employed random sampling technique in data collection by having 500 students of Inner Mongolia Medical University. The questionnaires distributed cover such topics as demographic characteristics; smartphone use behaviors; smartphone addiction scale (SAS-SV) questionnaire; life experience during COVID-19 questionnaire and depression anxiety and stress Scale (DASS-21) questionnaire. As for data analysis, binary logistic regression and multivariable logistic regression for controlling confounding factors were utilized to obtain an association between smartphone addiction and depression, stress and anxiety. The findings indicated that prevalence of smartphone addiction (55.4%); prevalence of depression, stress and anxiety (21.0%; 13.8% and 30.6, respectively). It was also found that the smartphone addicted users tend to experience a 4.53 times higher depression than those non-addicted after adjusting for gender, monthly allowance, residence, and smoking (OR=4.53, 95%CI=2.63 – 7.81); the smartphone addicted users tend to experience a 6.47 times higher anxiety than those non-addicted after adjusting for gender, GPA, BMI, monthly allowance, and smoking (OR=6.47, 95%CI=3.97 – 10.55); the smartphone addicted users tend to experience a 4.05 times higher stress than those non-addicted after adjusting for gender, study year, and monthly allowance (OR=4.05, 95%CI=2.12 – 7.71). In conclusion, smartphone addiction can be generally found among undergraduate students of Inner Mongolia Medical University. This study revealed that there was an association between smartphone addiction and depression, stress and anxiety. It is recommended that the parties and individual concerned have to find effective measures to curb the students’ smartphone addiction to promote mental health among students of Inner Mongolia Medical University.