Prevalence of smartphone addiction and its correlates in a sample of Egyptian university students

Abstract

Background: Smartphone addiction is considered currently as a public health concern especially among university students. Aim: The study assesses the prevalence of smartphone addiction and its sociodemographic and psychiatric correlates among Egyptian university students. Methods: A random sample of 1,380 undergraduate Egyptian university students from different universities were assessed using the smartphone addiction short scale, Beck depression Inventory, Beck anxiety Inventory, Pittsburgh sleep Quality Index, and Columbia suicide severity scale. Results: About 59% are smartphone addicts without any gender difference, we find a highly significant relation between smartphone addiction and depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, smoking, and suicide. Conclusion: our study adds to the existing literature regarding the magnitude of smartphone addiction and its relationship with different psychiatric disorders.

The Prevalence and Psychosocial Factors of Problematic Smartphone Use Among Chinese College Students: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

“…Firstly, our study found that possible SAD and depressive symptoms were statistically significant risk factors for PSU, which is consistent with most previous studies ( Enez Darcin et al, 2016 ; Elhai et al, 2017 , 2019 ; Okasha et al, 2021 ). According to the model of compensatory internet use proposed by Kardefelt-Winther (2014) , electronic devices such as smartphones can be viewed as an avoidance-coping strategy, which provides a feasible substitution of discomforting face-to-face contact with the social situations for individuals.…”

“…The prevalence of PSU observed in our sample was higher than that of young people in other countries such as Switzerland (16.9%) ( Haug et al, 2015 ), Japan (26.4%) ( Tateno et al, 2019 ), United Kingdom (38.9%) ( Sohn et al, 2021 ), Spain (12.5%), and Belgium (21.5%) ( Lopez-Fernandez, 2017 ) using the SAS-SV. However, similar to our study, Okasha et al (2021) investigated 1,380 Egyptian university students and found that the prevalence rate of PSU was 59.6%. This discrepancy across studies may be due to the economic differences between different countries.…”

“…It is difficult to determine the prevalence of PSU due to the lack of consistency in possible diagnostic criteria, economic and cultural differences between different countries, and the survey of highly restricted samples. Currently, some cross-sectional studies have reported a high prevalence of PSU in adolescents and adults ( Long et al, 2016 ; Lee and Lee, 2017 ; Nahas et al, 2018 ; Buctot et al, 2020 ; Okasha et al, 2021 ). In a systematic review and meta-analysis, researchers examined the prevalence of PSU among children and young people, and the results showed that the prevalence was between 10 and 30%, and the median was 23.3% ( Sohn et al, 2019 ).…”

Smartphone Addiction Prevalence and Its Association on Academic Performance, Physical Health, and Mental Well-Being among University Students in Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), Saudi Arabia

“…However, other studies found male students were at high risk of smartphone addiction [ 33 , 83 ]. Meanwhile, some studies did not find any gender difference in smartphone addiction [ 1 , 84 , 85 ]. These inconsistent findings warrant further studies whether gender is a significant factor in smartphone addiction.…”

Association between problematic use of smartphones and mental health in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: a systematic review

“…There were several de nitions of smartphone problematic use. According to some authors, it is the inability to limit phone use, which eventually disrupts users' functioning (19,26,29,32,40,47,48). While, other authors claimed that smartphone problematic use was a type of behavioral addiction that included salience, preoccupation, tolerance, withdrawal, and compulsive symptoms (30,33,34,38,41,44,48).…”