The extensive accessibility to smartphones in the last decade raises the concerns of addictive behavior patterns toward these technologies worldwide and in developing countries, and Arabic ones in particular. In an area of stigmatized behavior such as Internet and smartphone addiction, the hypothesis extends to whether there is a reliable instrument that can assess smartphone addiction. To our knowledge, no scale in Arabic language is available to assess maladaptive behavior associated with smartphone use. This study aims to assess the factorial validity and internal reliability of the Arabic Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS) and Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV) in a Moroccan surveyed population. Participants (N = 440 and N = 310) completed an online survey, including SAS, SAS-SV, and questions about sociodemographic status. Factor analysis results showed six factors with factor loading ranging from 0.25 to 0.99 for SAS. Reliability, based on Cronbach's alpha, was excellent (α = 0.94) for this instrument. The SAS-SV showed one factor (unidimensional construct), and internal reliability was in the good range with an alpha coefficient of (α = 0.87). The prevalence of excessive users was 55.8 percent with highest symptom prevalence reported for tolerance and preoccupation. This study proved factor validity of the Arabic SAS and SAS-SV instruments and confirmed their internal reliability.

Nutritional status is the best indicator of the global well-being of children. However, malnutrition affects physical growth, cognitive development, physical work capacity, and it consequently influences human performance and health. The present study was designed to identify factors that may influence the nutritional status and educational achievements of the children in a rural area of ANTI Atlas of Morocco. The nutritional status of 162 children (12 to 15 years of age) was assessed by nutritional anthropometry and compared with tables of weight-for-age and height-for-age z-scores (WAZ and HAZ) identifying wasting and stunting, respectively. A questionnaire was developed to collect information about socio-economic and demographic status of the children’s families. Also, educational achievements were assessed by their score in mathematics. A total of 162 children (64 boys and 98 girls), aged 12 –15 years. Results revealed 22.8% of stunting and 35.2% of wasting. Child age (p = 0.027), illiteracy of the mother (p = 0.004) was determinant factors with wasting. Stunting was significantly associated with gender (p = 0.03) and parents’ employment (p = 0.009). However, using logistic regression analysis, the results showed that stunting (p = 0.04) and mother level of education (p = 0.032) were significantly correlated with school achievements.In this area of study, malnutrition remains a major problem among adolescents’ school performances, which can affect their future. The main causes of malnutrition seem to be the bad weaning practices among school children and cultural attitudes of food. The educational achievements of school children are influenced by maternal education and stunting

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The present study was conducted to investigate occupational stress and general health among university professors, stress is measured by the Walter Gmelch Index (FSI), while general health was screened by the D. Goldberg GHQ-28 test. A collection of qualitative and quantitative data was carried out under the assumption that the stress at work perceived by the person correlates with his general health result.One hundred and twenty-five students (101 men, 20 women; aged 29-62) took part in this study with a kit that includes the two indices (FSI and GHQ-28) and a set of sociodemographic variables.The results revealed that a large part of the participants suffering from chronic stress and almost half of the subjects (48.76%) suffering from psychic disorders or somatization. The study also affirms our starting hypothesis on a significant correlation between the general state of health and the state of perceived stress. Statistical analysis also reveals a correlation between GHQ and certain institutional variables (grade and seniority at work).This study expresses the importance of a psychological first aid kit available to health professionals which makes it possible to estimate the prevalence of psychological distress in a given population and to detect psychosomatic cases which escape the general practitioner.

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