Objective: Early years of childhood form the basis of intelligence, personality, social behaviour, and capacity to learn and nurture oneself as an adult. Our objective was to find out the effects of screen time on behavior of pre-schoolers, which could provide scientific grounds to the control of digital screen time. Method: A cross sectional survey was conducted in four private preschools of Islamabad from June -November 2021. A sample size of 200 children ages three-five years were selected through multistage random sampling using a parental questionnaire. Children were grouped based on daily screen time of ≤60 minutes or >60 minutes. Analysis was made based on the Child behavior checklist for ages eighteen months-five years results. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was found to be 0.925. It was analyzed using SPSS version 22. Chi-square test, independent sample t-test and multi linear regression were applied to determine the association and significance levels between the variables. Results: Study results indicate increased screen time was statistically significant with child’s age, education level and employment status of mothers. It was observed that pre-schoolers with screen time of > 60 minutes tend to suffer more from withdrawal syndrome (11.94±3.91, p = 0.014) sleep problems (10.97±3.20, p = 0.010) and Autism spectrum problems (17.66±5.89, p = 0.047) as compared to pre-schoolers with screen time ≤60 minutes. Strongest predictor of outcome variable was found to be mothers education level (ß = 21.53). Conclusion: Study findings revealed that excessive screen time has deleterious effect and is associated with behavioural problems of pre-schoolers. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.39.2.6883 How to cite this: Suleman M, Sughra U, Riaz A, Akbar M. Effect of screen time on behavior of pre-schoolers in Islamabad. Pak J Med Sci. 2023;39(2):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.39.2.6883 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Purpose: To determine the frequency of uncorrected refractive error and its association with use of mobile and time spent indoor, among students of madrassas in Rawalpindi. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Al-Shifa Trust, Pakistan institute of Ophthalmology, from August to December 2015. Methods: A total of 410 male students of a Madrassa in Rawalpindi were recruited for study. The data was collected through structured questionnaire and visual status of the students was found by using Snellen visual acuity chart. Students with visual acuity of < 6/12 were further examined and categorized into myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. The data was analyzed by using SPSS version 20. The statistical significance was set at? ? 0.05. All descriptive variables were analyzed in the form of percentages and frequencies. Association among the categories was found by using Chi-Square tests of significance. Binary logistic regression analysis was done to find out the best predictors of refractive errors among Madrassa students. Results: Out of 410 students, 119 (29%) had refractive error which was 9 times more common in mobile users than those who were not using mobile phone (OR: 9.35, 95% CI: 5.01 – 17.45). Refractive error was 2 times more common in students with no outdoor activities (OR: 1.86, 95% CI: 1.09 – 3.16). Conclusion: Use of mobile, family history of refractive errors and outdoor activities were associated with refractive errors in madrassa students. Myopia was the commonest refractive error followed by astigmatism and hyperopia. Key Words: Refractive errors, Myopia, Hyperopia, Astigmatism.
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